Daddy Overnight
by MrsJagielski
Summary: When the death of an ex brings forth a child he hadn't known existed, Nathan Scott's world shifts on its axis. Righting himself to take care his son is hard enough. His attraction to the woman next door is a complacation he can't seem to stop.
1. Chapter 1

**_Disclaimer: As much as it pains me, I own nothing. One Tree Hill, and it's characters and it's storylines are only mine in my dreams._**

**_Author's Note: Any feedback on the story is very and truly appreciated. But know, I don't comment on coupling. My goal isthat you like the story enough that it doesn't really matter who is with who. I hope that this doens't lose me readers, but if so...I guess it can't be helped._**

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Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

One

In through the nose, out through the mouth. In. Out. In. Out. Up. Down. Up. Down. The music was so loud he couldn't hear the phone ringing in the back ground. His eyes saw nothing. All he could do was feel. The coolness of the bar as it hit his chest. He strain in his arms as he pushed it away. The burning in his muscles, the rapid beat of his heart. The sweat dotting his face, soaking his shirt, seeping on to the bench under him.

Ten more.

_Ten? Is that all you can do? If I wanted a daughter I would have had one._

_Screw you_.

The words ground out in his mind. He mouthed the words with his lips as he pushed out fifteen more in rapid succession, then set the bar on the rack behind him. It was the faint pounding on the door that finally got his attention. Guess the music only took out so much.

Sitting up on his workout bench, Nathan Scott rested his arms on his thighs. With his head hung low, he pulled in deep breath after deep breath. Then, taking the towel from the chair beside him, he wiped his face as he stood, moving toward the door.

"Yeah," he called when the pounding continued. "I'm coming."

The house was his. Paid in full. Nathan's first place if you didn't count the small apartment he lived in while he was in high school. His years in the NBA had treated him well. He would still be there if it hadn't been for a career ending injury.

"Shit." He kicked the thought out of his mind as he opened the door. Immediately he felt like closing it again. That's what he got for not looking through the peep hole.

That's what the hole in the door was made for.

"Are you not answering your phone?" The man said. "What if it was an emergency?"

"What do you want?"

"Do I need to have a reason to come see my son?"

Dan Scott. Tree Hill's resident basketball king. Old news compared to his son. Seeing as Nathan was the one who went all the way to the top and Dan had not. The man quit before he had his shot. And when he finally came to his senses it had been too late.

"What do you want?" he repeated.

"Came to see if you were alive."

"See?" Nathan opened the door wider resisting the urge to turn in a complete circle. It would piss the man off, he knew. That was the best part. But he didn't have time for a Dan Scott lecture. He had somewhere to be. He was just about to tell the man so when the door opened next door and a familiar woman stepped out.

_Every time,_ Nathan thought to himself.

Every time he saw her it was like seeing her for the first time. He steeled himself for it, but she always seemed to take his breath away. Even when she was dressed in something as simple as jeans and a T-shirt. The woman was beyond beautiful.

Stunning.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Nathan watched her as she walked. Her hair was a burnt gold color with a kind of red tint to it when the sunlight bounced off its strands. Sundown had become his favorite time of the day. Especially when he was lucky enough to catch his neighbor out in the sun's rays. The curly strands fell down to the middle of her back. Was it soft to the touch? He could only wonder as the mass slid against her shoulders, moving with her as she walked to her truck.

Yeah, a truck.

Not one of those girly VW Bug deals. Her mode of transportation was one more thing that was seriously, _seriously _hot about her.

"_O-ho._" The elder Scott chuckled. "Nice."

He shot his father a look. One that Dan didn't catch because he was too busy with his tongue hanging out his head.

It shouldn't have bothered Nathan that his father was watching her too, but it did. It bothered him a whole hell of a lot. It wasn't like the guy was a married man anymore. His mother had taken care of that a long time ago. Not that the man had cared. He was free to do whatever he pleased now. Long as it had nothing to do with him, Nathan was content to let his father be. Things would be so much easier if his dad would return the favor.

-

"It's about time you showed up."

"Got caught up." Nathan explained. "Had a little something to take care of." Slipping into the empty stool at the bar, Nathan motioned to the blonde woman behind the bar.

Peyton Sawyer. She had been his girlfriend back in high school. She the cheerleader to Nathan's the jock. The relationship was destined. Not that it lasted very long. They didn't love each other. They didn't know what it meant. Nathan hadn't cared about it then. He still didn't now. It was amazing really how he and Peyton had still remained friends.

She and Jake Jagielski, another friend from high school, owned _Jeyton._ It sounded like the name of some hot spot club, but it was just a bar in Tree Hill. Nathan had a piece of the establishment, too. But he was more of a silent partner. He was not only one third of the partnership, he was the tie breaker. Being the deciding vote was like being the third wheel in a complicated marriage.

The bar was a hit from the day it opened_. Jeyton_ was where you came for good friends, great beer, awesome wings, live music on the weekends and every other Wednesday, and sports until last call. If Jake had TV control. If not, you only had to ask Peyton really, _really_ nicely.

"Excuse me?" Soft, feminine voice cooed behind him. Nathan looked over his shoulder into the face of a blonde haired, blue eyed siren. "Are you, Nathan Scott?" She asked with a smile. He heard Tim groan behind him and he smiled.

"Yeah. I'm Nathan Scott." He swiveled around on his stool, holding out his hand.

"I knew it." The woman smiled bigger. Dimples winked on either side of her mouth. "My friends and I," she pointed to the table of equally attractive women on the other side of the room. Nathan nodded their way with the crooked smile was so known for. Two of the ladies nodded back, the other raised a come-hither brow. "We had a bet." The woman in front of him continued.

Turned back to the woman. "A bet?"

"Yeah." She went on. "They didn't think that it was you, and I was certain. So, they dared me to come over here see if you really were in fact the Nathan Scott. And if you were, I'm supposed to get you autograph."

"You want my autograph?" The way she was looking at him told him that his woman wanted more than his autograph. It wouldn't be the first time that he was given an unspoken offer. And as much as he would have been tempted a couple years back, he was more discriminate now.

"If it wouldn't be too much." The smile gave him had Nathan searching his pockets. "I don't have anything to write with." He looked at the woman expectantly, and she looked back a faint pout on her lips.

"Here you go, Nate-man." No smart person in the world would call Tim Smith reliable, but he always managed to somehow come through in a pinch. "Okay, now you got something for me to write on?"

"This is the bet part." The woman explained. "I bet my friends over there that I could get you to autograph me."

Oh, man. This day was just looking up.

_"Oh, please." _

He ignored the comment grinned wider and stood. He was close enough to the woman that he could smell her perfume. She turned around lifted up her hair and asked, "Could you make it out to Cindy?"

Peyton's sniggering behind him had Nathan grinning to himself as he glanced the bartender's way. He signed the woman's neck, a first if you could believe that, with a short message, his name and his jersey number. As he retook his seat, both Nathan and Tim watched as the woman sauntered away.

"Cindy? Are you kidding me?" Peyton raised a slim brow her lips smiling. She had her curly blonde hair pulled atop her head with a pencil; arrant strands fell around her face. Her hazel eyes were filled with amusement. "You still attract 'em, Scott." She teased.

"What can I say?" Nathan shrugged winking at her.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Thank God for silicone?" She offered with a cheeky smirk. Setting Nathan's beer in front of him, Peyton gave his cheek a pat and went to wait on other patrons.

"You're still the luckiest guy I know when it comes to the opposite sex." Tim commented. Nathan couldn't remember a time in his life when Tim Smith wasn't present. The two of them had been best friends since kindergarten. He had fond memories of the both of them sitting in the Principal's office. Had even fonder memories of them flooding the girl's bathroom in the third grade. No one else had the guts to go in the girl's room. Nathan smiled at the memory.

"I'd say you're the lucky one." He nodded to the gold band on his friend's finger. "You married a good woman."

"Yeah. I did." Tim replied, smiling softly. "But just once, I would like a woman to throw herself at me. That would totally make my day."

"You sleep beside a beautiful woman every night," Nathan looked over at him. "And you're complaining about not having women throw themselves at you?"

"Am I hearing a little jealousy, Scott?" Tim raised his brows. "Is that envy I'm detecting? Weren't you the guy who said that you would never get married? That you weren't the marriage type?"

Nathan nodded. "And I still stand by my story. You're the one with 'home & hearth' tattooed on your ass. I'm happy being single. All I'm saying is that you don't have anything to complain about. Teresa is a beautiful, _beautiful_ woman."

"That she is." Tim said wistfully. "That she is." Any other time, the sight of a guy going dumb over a woman would have made Nathan nauseous, but this was Tim. All he's ever wanted was Teresa. Now, he had her and Nathan couldn't be happier for his friend.

"So what kept you?"

"What?"

"Why are you late?" Tim asked again. "What was the thing that you had to take care of?"

"Dan stopped by." Nathan took a deep drink of his brown beverage, wiping the foam from his lip with his thumb. "The guy just doesn't know when to quit."

"What did he want this time?"

"What he's wanted since before I left for college. To be one big happy family with him and his other son." Nathan felt his fist clench. It took real effort for him to un-ball his fingers.

A brother. That was what Lucas Scott was by blood. They shared a father. Dan didn't admit to having another son until the day of graduation. Nathan knew. The whole damn town knew, but Dan thought that not talking about it made it not so. At least in his screwed world.

Lucas knew, too. And he was just as opposed to the big happy family with the three of them that Nathan was. So, if Dan wanted a Brady Bunch family where everyone was wanted, were everyone got along, then the man had better look somewhere else. He wasn't interested. He liked his life just the way that it was. It would be a cold day in hell before he was apart of anyone's happy family.

-

Nathan wasn't about to be pulled out of the best sleep he'd had in months. Burrowing deeper into his pillows, determined to hold on to his sleep just a little longer, he pulled at the stray pillow that was about to fall to the floor. Putting it over his head, he covered his ears.

It was morning. He didn't have to see the daylight to know it. He heard the birds in the tree outside his window. Why had he left the window open again? Didn't people in this cul-de-sac sleep? Was that a lawn mower? Three months in one place and Nathan still wasn't used to it.

Next chance he got, he was drugging the town's water supply with _Niquil_. Then they'd all sleep until noon on Saturday. That sleep that he so badly wanted to get back to was gone. He turned to lie on his back just as the clock at his bedside went off.

He'd set his clock? How tired was he when he went to bed last night? Have to been the walking dead to set the friggin' alarm clock for Saturday of all mornings. The throbbing in his knee was always the worst right when he woke up. Used to the pain, Nathan resisted the urge to massage it. It would stop, eventually. Pillowing his hands behind his head, he stared at nothing. He didn't have anything to do. He had to be at the bar to do inventory later.

Sitting up, he tossed his sheets away. It was too hot last night for heavy blankets.

_Hence the open window. _He shook his head with a smirk. Swinging his legs over the side of bed, he found himself looking down at his knee as he did every morning. The scars from his surgery were still there. Not as prominent as they used to be, but still there.

Stepping into his shorts, he pulled them up over his hips as he stood, then he dropped to the floor, cranking out push-ups until his arms started to get tired.

He wasn't out of the shower two minutes before his phone started to ring. He was pulling an old Duke T-shirt over his head as he walked into the kitchen. The answering machine had picked up before he could get to it.

"_Nathan?" _

He pulled his hand back from the phone slowly. Leaning into the counter behind him, he rubbed a hand over his eyes, down the sides of his face, then back up through his dark hair.

"_Nathan, are you there?"_ The voice continued. _"Please pick up." _

He wouldn't. Nathan never did. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to his mother. He just didn't know how. He never knew how to speak to his mom, actually. It only got worse with the two of them as the years wore on. He didn't talk to his mother unless he had to. He consoled himself with the fact that he didn't do it out of spite, or because he didn't love her.

For all the good that it did.

"_You aren't home."_ Her voice sighed. _"Or at least I hope you aren't, and not standing by the phone listening to me." _

If she only knew how many times it was so.

She called him every morning. He never missed a message. He didn't erase them, or record over them. That said he had a soul, right? Nathan rubbed his knuckles over his chin. He'd forgotten to shave. Again.

"_Okay. Well. I thought that I would try again and ask you to come to the house for dinner."_

It was his turn to sigh this time. It hadn't the first time that his mother had asked him to come to her home for dinner either. And it hadn't the first time that Nathan chose not to show. He knew what his mom wanted and he couldn't give it to her.

"_Nathan?"_ She said again.

He'd turned away from the phone. His hands were braced on the counter. His head hung, and his jaw was clenched so tight he was grinding his teeth. The sound echoed loud inside his head.

"_I wish that you didn't feel the way that you do, Nathan. He loves you. We both do." _

_I don't wan to hear that_, Nathan shouted in his head. He despised that word.

Love.

It didn't mean anything to him. It was just another word. You could find it in the dictionary between _louver_ and _love-bird_. Some people believed in it. Nathan wasn't one of them. The way people threw that word around now, it was like people doing stupid things in the name of God.

"_I won't stop trying."_ His mother said. "_You're my son, Nathan. And I want you to be in my life. It's important to me. You never know when your time will be up, and I want to spend as much time as possible with the people that I love."_

There it was, that word again. He looked back at the machine. He should pick up, at least to make sure that nothing was wrong. He didn't like the last words that came out of his mother's mouth.

_You never know when your time will be up. _

What did that mean? Was she sick? Before he could find out, his mother was speaking again.

"_Were your family Nathan. He's your family." _

"Last I checked, families weren't supposed to treat each other the way that we treat each another." Nathan said to no one.

"_What are you going to do when you have children, Nathan? A wife and family of your own." _He remembered his mother saying not so long before.

His answer? Nathan didn't plan to. He was too much of a bastard to be any woman's husband or any child's father. It was the Scott curse passed down from father to son within their family for generations.

"And the truth shall set you free." Nathan whispered. Wasn't that the saying? He wouldn't subject anyone to what was inside him. You could say that it all stopped with him.

"_Okay." _Said almost sadly over the line. Nathan balled his fist to keep from snatching up the phone receiver. He wanted to punch something. Himself. Really, really hard.

"_I love you." _His mother managed before she hung up.

-

He felt like shit. Nathan made sure not to let it show when he stepped into the bar. Last thing he needed was well meaning friends trying to help him with something he didn't feel like talking about.

"I didn't expect you to show up." Peyton said over her shoulder as he walked in. "What happened, you and Cindy didn't hit it off?"

They hadn't as a matter of fact. And contrary to what Peyton obviously believed, Nathan didn't leave with Cindy the night before. Cindy took it upon herself to follow him out. Nathan took it upon himself not to get caught up. He wasn't looking for a relationship and that's exactly what Cindy had on her mind. A one night stand wouldn't have been enough for her, and that was all that Nathan could give. Had he been interested. Five minutes of Dan talk with Tim the night before had killed what little of the good day he had after his father had made a visit.

"I let her down easy." Nathan smirked.

"You got shot down." Jake's laughter boomed from behind the bar. He was washing glasses; the smile on his face nearly reached his eyes.

"Come on, you know better than that, Jagielski." Nathan slipped into a seat on the bar. "You know I'm the guy who gives the turn down service."

"Yeah," the other man chuckled.

The three of them spent most of the day setting the bar up for the night. It was early yet, and the place wasn't set to open until lunch. Even then, things didn't pick up until the regulars came in after the end of the work day. They were sitting at one of the booths when the first customer came in. Jake went to tend bar, Peyton stayed with Nathan at the table.

"It would be great." She commented. "It's been a while since you guys got up there and did your thing."

"And it'll be longer." Nathan informed her. While Dan had been adamant that his son would play the game of basketball, Nathan's mother did what she could to make sure that Nathan wasn't all sports all the time. Which was why Nathan could play a mean piano. It wasn't often that he, Tim and Jake picked up their respective instruments and had some fun. But when they did, the men went all out.

"You're smiling." Peyton said. "Which means that you're thinking about it."

"A man smiles for many reasons." Nathan did his best impression of Jake. "What's not to smile about when you have a beautiful woman in your company?"

"Please." She muttered.

"You take real pleasure in wounding my pride." Nathan rubbed at his chest with his knuckles.

"Your pride is as hard as your head." Peyton pointed out. "Nothing could dent that thing." She glanced away from him saying, "Your mother called me this morning."

"Why?"

Peyton looked back at him. "For some reason she thinks that I can talk some sense into you."

"Leave it alone, Peyton." He warned her. He didn't like the fact that his mother was bringing in reinforcements. He didn't need anyone else giving their two cents about the matter.

"I wasn't about to say a thing." Peyton crossed her arms. "Only that you're an idiot."

"Dammit, Peyton." Nathan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. History told him that she wasn't about to let this go. Especially when she thought that he was acting like a jack-ass. Which was damn near all the time.

"I don't think you have any idea how much your mother loves you. It's more than any of us get in a life time."

Shit. He hated that she was right. And Peyton spoke from experience. Her mother died when she was young. Peyton had never gotten over it no matter how hard she tired.

"I know how much my mother cares." Nathan said to her. "I don't want to hurt her, that's why I'm staying away."

"Wrong." Peyton shook her head. "You're hurting her _by_ staying away. She doesn't have to say it to feel it. And neither do you. You're still angry with her. And him. My advice to you. Get over it. And quick. Love is love, and family is forever. Your life would be so much better with the both of them in it."

-

It was dark out. Nathan had called it an early night hours before. The light from the street lamps lit up his driveway. The air's cool breeze was heaven on Nathan's heated skin. He had been out in the drive shooting free-throws and playing against himself since sundown. He was so used to playing in his knee brace that he forgot that the thing was even there. Aside from the occasional pick up game he and they guys got started a few times a month, this was the close as Nathan came to playing the game.

_Your life would be so much better with the both of them in it._

_Dammit._

He hated when their words got stuck in the back of his mind. Peyton or Jake, it didn't matter. It was like the two of them were thinking with the same brain or something.

Nathan liked his life just fine. He had his home, his health, what was left of it. His personal life was lacking, but he could take care of that if he wanted to. But he didn't. Not right now. His family life was always the pits. And it had only gotten worse. He couldn't do anything about it before. He was an adult now, and he chose not to deal with it.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if he chose to deal. If he let his mother back in, then she would want him to let in her husband as well. Nathan couldn't do that. Could his mother be happy if he let her back in? Would she settle for it being just the two of them? And if he decided to give his father a break, would he let up on this whole family deal? Probably not, but the guy had no power. Both Nathan and Lucas had vetoed the whole happy family thing.

It was just too damn much to think about now. And shooting around wasn't doing anything to calm his nerves anymore. The sound of the ball on cement did nothing for his mood. The left-handed basket he shot bricked off the rim. Nathan let the ball roll down the drive and into the street. It was dinner time now. He guzzled down half of the water bottle he had brought outside with him. The thought of the dinner ritual his father had insisted on having when Nathan lived at home had him grimacing.

It was hard to be sorry those days were over.

He was ordering a pizza with everything.


	2. Chapter 2

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Two

The man next door was dangerous. And she would have to do everything, short of moving, to keep away from him.

He was wounded, and a tortured man was Haley's weakness. Not that she dated very many. Haley barely dated at all, but she was always, without fail, attracted to good looking men who had been hurt before, and only needed the love of a good woman to save them...before they moved on to someone else. Or, worse yet, went back to the women who hurt them in the first place.

It was a sad fact true, but Haley James was the rebound chick. She had a keen sense for a wounded man almost as good as the acute sense she had when it came to rule breaking, own law making, bad boys. If her neighbor was sending off vibes then the man had most definitely been hurt by a woman.

She was tired of being the "recovery chick." For once, Haley wanted for a man to have to be recovered because of her.

"Like that's ever going to happen." She muttered to her reflection.

And why not? Haley wanted to know. She was an alright looking woman. Better than alright when she went all out and did herself up. Many of recovered men had complemented her on her eyes. Saying how they were the color of melted chocolate. Or her hair that had _natural _red highlights when the sun hit her curly strands, thank you very much. And she couldn't count the many times she had been compliment on her 'barely tanned skin'. She didn't know where the "barely tanned" came from. Personally, Haley thought that she was as pale a white bed sheet. It wasn't like she could get any sun when she was working damn near every time she turned around.

She couldn't complain. Haley loved her job. Today was her day off, if you could believe it. Haley was a teacher and a tutor on Saturdays. It was as close as she could get to having kids without actually having any over her own.

And sure; she wanted babies...someday. But she had to have a husband to have children, and the men that came her way obviously didn't see Haley as wife and mother material. She sighed as she stepped out on her porch. She was resigned to the fact that she would forever and always be the ultimate aunt. At least until a miracle happened to make it otherwise.

Pulling her hair up high on her head with a rubber-band, Haley stepped from the porch into the late morning/early afternoon heat. Walking to the side of her house, she turned on her water hose, then, with heavy, green, snake-like material in hand, she moved toward her drive way.

Her truck was pure indulgence. A cherry red, Dodge Ram Quad Cab. It looked like something a guy would drive. Way too big for her, but it was Haley's paid in full. What could she say? She was a short woman who liked riding up high.

Like the day before, this day was going to be a real hot one. Getting her car washed before noon was priority. She smiled. Not like washing her car was a chore. It wasn't. For Haley, it was a bonafide release. Her brothers, who all of which dreaded the job, thought that she was nuts for liking it so much. Her sisters, whom all could be classified under the word priss, Taylor included, but only marginally, thought that Haley was out of her mind for having a car that swallowed her whole. They didn't know how she managed her "monster truck."

She was halfway through toweling off her wheels when she heard the sound of a door opening. Looking over her shoulder, she watched as her next door neighbor stepped out on his porch. All six feet plus inches of him.

Her mouth when dry and her palms started to sweat under the heavy cotton of the towel she held in her hand. And it wasn't like the guy was naked or anything. He wasn't even shirtless...

_But damn..._

The T-shirt was damn near molded to his body like a second skin. The man was hardly body builder material, but anyone with eyes could see that the guy took care of himself. Not a gym rat per se, but Haley would put money on the fact that her neighbor had a set of weights in his place.

A quick glance at the man's face had Haley fighting a blush. He was looking at her, too. His eyes were an eerie shade of gray and blue. How she could tell from where she was, not even Haley knew. Those eyes weren't quite blue. But they weren't all the way gray either if the way the sun played off them was any indication.

Cal Ripken Jr. Haley mentally snapped her fingers. That's who neighbor guy's eyes reminded her of.

At the moment, though, it wasn't the man's eyes, but the quirk to his lips, the crooked little half smile that had Haley battling embarrassment. He was watching her watch him. And oh, oh he was wounded one. That little smile didn't come close to his eyes.

Damn. It wasn't everyday that Haley ran into a man who fell into two of her magnet categories. What was it about men who made their own rules while coming off being hurt at the same time?

She was seriously twisted. That was the only explanation for it.

Haley mentally shook her head, giving the man a small smile of her own, she turned back to her car.

Damn! She'd looked too long and the water had spotted on her car. She'd have to start again. But that was okay, because maybe, just maybe, the repeat would go toward pushing those intriguing eyes from her mind.

Haley cast another glance over her shoulder. He was still there. Still watching her.

She sighed.

"Or not."

-

His feet pounded against the hot pavement, and the sun was still in his eyes, even thought his shades. Nathan used to run nearly every day before his surgery.

For some reason it was like everything came back to that.

It was apart of him, sure. And like most parts of him lately, Nathan wanted nothing to do with it.

His mother had called again this morning. Hence why he was running for the first time since setting foot out of the hospital almost eleven months back.

Running for the first time _physically_.

He didn't live in denial. Nathan knew what he was doing in regard to his family. It wasn't his father that Nathan was running away from. He beat the man. There was nothing that Dan could do that would push Nathan over the edge anymore. It was his mother that he never understood.

She had all the power in the world to hurt him. Nathan didn't hate her the way that he hated Dan. But that didn't mean that he forgave her. She was in the house with them. Why didn't she leave? He would have gone with her. In a heartbeat. His mother wouldn't have had to ask him twice.

The reason she stayed had the bitterness churning inside him again. He knew why his mother stayed. She stayed so that she could be near _him_. The other man. Her lover. She was the one with the money. His mother could have walked away.

She didn't stay in the marriage for him, Nathan knew. And Dan couldn't have used her affair against her to sue for custody. Nathan had been old enough then to choose where he wanted to be. Whose home he wanted to live in. It damn sure wasn't his father's. And, looking back on it, it wasn't his mother's either.

It didn't really matter, because in the end, his mother chose to stay, and Nathan chose to go. He moved out and into his own place. It was no bigger than a shoe box, but it was his for the rent he paid every month. It was away from his parents and all that used to be his life. His father's competitiveness, his mother's affair. None of it had exist in Nathan's walls. He hadn't let it. But as soon as he stepped out side those walls, closing the door behind him, he was back in it again.

Being emancipated was the best thing that he could have ever done for himself. Living in that house with his parents had already made him an adult before his time. Nathan had taken it one step further and made it official.

When he had finished running, finding himself in front of his house again. He had run in a complete circle. A glance to the right told him that his neighbor wasn't home. Her truck wasn't in the drive, and she wasn't doing yoga in front of an open window.

Nathan felt a smile pulling at his lips when he thought about how he'd caught his neighbor looking at him earlier. And he was seriously thinking about asking her out, now that he knew that she was interested.

His phone rang just before Nathan could put the key in the lock, but he wasn't in a hurry. That's what answering machines were for. And he didn't want to risk picking up the phone only to have his mother on the other line.

This was one instance where he would own up to being a coward.

Tossing his keys to the top of the entertainment center, Nathan pulled his shirt over his head as he closed the door behind him. Wiping his face, neck and chest with the damp cotton as the answering machine picked up.

_"This is Nate. I'm not here. Get to it..."_

"_Mr. Scott? Nathan." _The voice corrected. Nathan frowned at the both the unfamiliar woman's voice and nervous laugh that followed_. "Rach said that you hated that name. Not...not Nathan," _there was that nervous laugh again. _"But Mr. Scott. Listen, if you could call me at this number, 555-..." _Nathan knew the number. It belonged to the hotel. Jake stayed there.

"_I would very much appreciate it." _The voice continued. _"It's very important that you get back to me as soon as possible on this-"_

The woman hadn't left her name, he thought as he listened to the message over again. But she had mentioned a woman named 'Rach'. Nathan knew someone who went by that name. She was the relationship. The woman who had walked out on him after he had his accident.

Why was she trying to get in contact with him now? And why was she going through someone else to do it?

Without thinking, Nathan picked up the phone and dialed the number. The phone rang six times before it was picked up, then the line rang three more times after it was transferred to the room the woman said that she would be staying in.

"Yes?" The new, now familiar voice asked.

"Uh...yeah. This...this is Nathan, Nathan Scott. You left me a message?"

"Yes." The woman replied. "Yes I did."

"How do you know Rachel?" Nathan wanted to know.

"Rachel Gattina was my best friend." The woman replied.

Was?

"Mr. Scott, Nathan," she corrected herself again. "I called because there is something that you need to know."

Nathan felt his whole body grow cold. "About Rachel?"

"Among other things."

"Okay." He cleared his throat. "Okay." He said again. "Tell me."

"This isn't the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone."

"So you want to meet?"

"At the hotel as soon as possible."

As soon as possible was that night. Whatever it was, Nathan couldn't until the next morning as this woman had suggested.

-

"_We should do this in the morning. It would be better."_

"_For who?" Nathan asked her. "I won't be able to sleep. I'm coming to you, right now. Do you have a name?"_

"_Anna." The woman replied. "Anna Delgado."_

And as he sat out in the parking lot of Tree Hill's only hotel, Nathan was rethinking the whole waiting until the morning thing. Whatever this it was that this woman had to tell him, it had him scared. Scared enough to admit that fear to himself. Scared enough to make him want to turn his car around and go the hell home. To deal with this when the sun came up.

But he couldn't do that. He wasn't lying about not being able to sleep if he didn't get this over with right now.

_Just open the door and get out of the car and get this over with, _he berated himself. _Do it now!_

What if she had been sick and didn't tell him? Nathan knew that he was okay; he got checked every six months. But what if it wasn't anything like that? What if Rachel had been sick and that was the reason that she walked. He didn't know why, but it hurt. It hurt to think that she didn't trust him enough to let him be there for her if she was hurting. He didn't do a lot of things right by her, and she by him, but Nathan liked to think that he would have been there for Rachel, even if she hadn't been there for him.

Unable to sit in his car any longer, he got out, closing the door smartly behind him. For what seemed like hours, Nathan just stood there. He couldn't make himself walk those few steps to the room the woman was staying in.

To the room where a secret lied.

More than once, he made the trek, twice, raising his hand to knock, and twice chickening out. He got in his car ready to drive away, and then he saw the woman standing in the window. Was she looking out for him? Nathan didn't know. He couldn't see a whole lot of her, but he could see that she had long hair. Dark hair that was braided into a long rope at the back of her head. When their gazes caught, Nathan knew that the she knew that he wasn't just some guy sitting in his car. He couldn't leave now, so once again, Nathan left his car and made his way to the room. The door opened, and the woman from the window, the voice from the phone, stood in front of him.

If he had to describe her in one word it would be exotic. Her eyes were almond shaped, and the color was of pure onyx. Her skin tone was that of maybe a South American goddess. Nathan had never seen any woman with looks like hers that wasn't in some magazine or something.

She said nothing, just stepped back in from the door. Her way of telling him to come in.

"Rachel told you about me?" Were Nathan's first words. The woman only shrugged her shoulders.

"We were best friends. We talked about everything."

"You keep saying 'were'." Nathan watched as a shadow crossed the woman's eyes.

"Rach is dead." She said. "There was a car accident, and she didn't make it."

Nathan sat down hard on the bed. He rubbed a hand over his face, the back of his neck. "I'm sorry." He in a voice that was so quiet, it could barely be heard. The woman, Anna, only nodded.

"If Rachel is dead, why are you here? Why did you come looking for me? What's this thing that I need to know?"

"When she died, she left a lot behind." She left a lot behind before she'd left the Earth, but Nathan kept that little thought to himself.

"What does it have to do with me?"

A sound in the next room caught Nathan's attention. A cry? He listened harder as it sounded again. It was a cry. A baby's cry. He got to his feet, watching as Anna walked into the next room, her voice was soothing as she talked to the child in the next room. Nathan didn't know a lot about babies, but he didn't want to be trapped in a room with one.

She came out with the child on her shoulder. A boy from the looks of the blue blanket the baby was wrapped in. He couldn't see the baby's face, but he could see the top of the blue hat on the child's little head.

"You have a kid?"

The woman shook her head. "No." She said. "You do. This is what Rachel left behind. A child. Your son."


	3. Chapter 3

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Three

Nathan looked from the woman to the baby, then back to the woman again. Unconsciously, he took a step back.

"I don't have a son." He said. "I don't know what Rachel told you, but that baby isn't mine. Can't be. We were careful. Always. She would have told me."

Why couldn't he breathe? Why wouldn't his body take in any air?

"She should have told you." The dark haired woman said as the baby she held let out an agitated squall. She rocked and patted the baby's back as she moved to the small couch. Laying the child down, she reached for the diaper bag on the floor beside it with one hand.

"She went back and forth on that decision, many decisions, all throughout her pregnancy. And, in the end she decided that it would be best that you not be told."

Nathan didn't hear anything that the woman was saying. His gaze was riveted on the small being on in front of him. His eyes were open, but they looked at nothing. But Nathan's eyes, they saw everything. He was so small. Little fingers had pushed at the cap on his head as the baby rubbed at his face. A shock of almost black hair sat on the top of his head. Something in Nathan compelled him to move closer. To see more.

When he stood not two feet away, Nathan wished that he never came. He wished that Anna, whatever-her-last-name was, had never called him. He went as far as wishing that he had never met Rachel Gattina, because there was no denying what was right in front of his face. It was like looking through his baby book. The hair, the eyes, the hands the feet, hell, even the ears. It was him. It was all Nathan.

_He had a son._

His vision went dim, the room spun, and for a split second, Nathan thought that he would pass out.

This was not happening. It couldn't be. They were careful.

"We were careful." Nathan said. Surprised at his voice behind her, Anna's head wiped around as she looked over her shoulder. Nathan's eyes weren't on her, but on the baby that lie on the couch. His little palms spread out as he stretched. His little mouth opened on a wide yawn.

"Nothing is one-hundred percent." The woman murmured.

A she redressed the baby boy in his white sleeper and wrapped him again in his blue blanket, Anna continued to speak.

"She wanted me to be the one to take care of her baby if something were to happen to her. Her parents were dead, and she and her sister hadn't spoken to each other in years. They were all that I had, and that's okay, because all they had was me."

She rose slowly, rhythmically patting the small bundle as she rocked him in her arms. She looked Nathan in the eye saying, "And I would have kept her promise. Not just because she asked me to. Not just because she was my best friend, not because I loved her. Love her; but because this baby is all that I have left now. I'm just selfish enough to want this boy for myself. But I'm also human."

She said as she took a step forward. Nathan's eyes again shifted from the woman in front of him to the baby in her arms. He had his eyes closed, his fingers in his mouth. No doubt he was nearly asleep. He had to fight the urge to reach out and touch the small being. To make sure that he was real and not some trick in his overly stressed out mind.

"I couldn't just go on and not let you know that you had a son." She continued. "I'm giving you an out, right now."

Nathan's gaze jumped back to hers.

"If you don't think that you can do it, if you don't want to be a father, I'll take him. I'll take him and raise him just the way that his mother wanted. You just say the word, and were gone." Her black eyes were pleading; both fear and hope dueled for a place in their shadowy depths.

He didn't know if he could do this.

-

_"Nathan?"_

"Yeah. I know that it's late, but I need to see you."

He had to force himself to unclench the hand that was griped to the steering wheel, and to give his car more gas. He was going at least ten below the limit. The last thing that he needed was for a cop to stop him for driving too slow.

_"What's the matter?"_ The woman's anxious voice asked over the phone line. Nathan could hear rustling in the back ground. The sound of a man's voice had his fist clenching on the steering wheel once more, giving him second thoughts about even making the phone call in the first place. He was just about to hang up when she spoke again.

_"Nathan, what's wrong?"_

"I don't want to talk about it on the phone." He told her. "I'm ten minutes away. I'll see you in a few." He hung up without letting her reply. Throwing the phone to the seat next to him, he looked into the back seat from his rearview mirror for what had to be the millionth time since he'd left the motel.

The baby hadn't made a sound and Nathan was tempted to pull over just so that he could check to see if he was breathing. Both fists gripped the wheel now, and he could feel the sweat beading at his temples, on his neck, slide down his back.

There was no going back now. He'd made his choice, and now he would have to live with it. And he was scared. Nathan was scared to death. He wouldn't have called his mother otherwise. He wouldn't be driving over to her place in the middle of the night if this wasn't a life or death situation. And it was most definitely was.

Giving into impulse, he pulled the car to the side of the road. Pocketing his keys, he pressed unlock button on his car door before stepping out into the night. Sliding into the backseat, closing the door behind him, Nathan lifted the blanket from the car seat. It was faced backward so the baby was facing the back window of the car. He didn't know it was supposed to be that way. He would have had the baby in the front seat, or hooked up the car seat wrong if Anna hadn't have showed him otherwise.

He was sleeping. Inky lashes rested on small cheeks. A blue knit cap covered his head. His little fists were doubled, held to his chest. She'd changed his clothes. He was wearing blue pajamas with little cows on them now.

Would he have to by such nauseating clothing now, too?

It wasn't the shopping that had Nathan slowing hard; it was the fact that he was responsible. He held a human life in the palm of his hands. A life that he had made. A life that he hadn't known about.

And he chose to be responsible.

He didn't know how long he had sat there, lost in his thoughts. The sound of his cell phone ringing had him jerking to attention. Looking back to the baby in the seat, he saw that it hadn't fazed the child. The boy was still sound asleep. Nathan grabbed his phone as he started the car again and easily pulled into traffic.

_"Where are you?"_ His mother asked him. _"I'm standing out here on the porch. You said ten minutes. It's been eleven."_

"I had to stop." Was all that he told her.

_"Are you hurt?"_

"No."

_"Sick?"_

"No."

She hesitated before saying, _"Has something happened to your father?"_

"Why would you care?" The words came without hesitation; without remorse. Hearing his mother sigh over the lines did very little to rouse any sympathy, or apology in him. Things were what they were. Nothing could change that.

_"I don't want to fight with you, Nate. And if that's what this is about-"_

"It's not."

_"Then what?"_

"I told you I don't want to talk about it over the phone."

_"Why not?"_ His mother demanded. The fear in her voice not totally overcome by her impatience.

"Because not even you will believe it until you see it."

As advertised, Nathan's mother was standing on the porch in her pajamas and dark purple slippers. Worry etched around her dark eyes as she stepped from the porch and on to the lawn that lined her home. The door was opened behind her. A man stood just inside it. He stepped out of the car just as his mother reached him.

She looked him over more than once, tears brimming in her dark brown eyes. For a second, she didn't know what to do. When she threw her arms around his neck, he didn't hug her back, didn't push her away, although his mind screamed at him to.

She held his face in his hands, assured that Nathan wasn't hurt. At least not physically.

He pulled away from his mother's touch, moving to the back door of his sports utility vehicle. Deb watched with confusion. Her eyes widened when her son emerged with a baby carrier in his hands. She looked from Nathan to the blanket covered car seat, then back to her son again. She opened her mouth to speak, but words escaped her.

Following closely on his heels, Deb passed her husband; Keith closed the door behind them.

"What in the world?" Nathan heard the man's voice grumble. He followed the lights into the living room. Walking about the back of the huge sectional, he carefully set the seat down on the cushions in front of him only to be muscled out of the way by his mother who pulled the blanket from the car seat setting it slowly on the couch next the contraption. Hand to her mouth, Nathan saw the first tear fall. Again he had to swallow hard.

"Oh, Nathan," She said as she slowly went to her knees. Reaching out, Deb worked the seat so that the heavy plastic handle was pushed to the back and she could get a better look at the child inside. Deb didn't need to ask if the boy was her son's. She only had to look. His little head was covered, but Deb would put money on the baby's hair being so dark it was almost black.

Unhooking the seat belt, Deb got to her feet, bringing the baby to her. Nathan had fallen to the couch on the other side of the en-table. His head was down, and he had all ten gingers rammed in his hair. He listened as the baby squeaked and started to cry, only to be soothed by a mother with years of experience.

"How?" He heard his mother ask. Her voice cracked on the word.

"I think that it's obvious how." Was her husband's dry reply. "The question is whether or not he's going to be responsible."

Nathan's head shot up at the other man's words. "You're a fine one to talk about responsibility." Nathan growled.

The man sighed. "You really want to do this again?" He asked. "Right now?"

"I didn't come her for you, so why don't you do us both a favor and go crawl into a bottle or something."

_"Hey!"_ The word was soft for the baby's sake, but where was enough starch in it to make both men close their mouths. Deb shot her husband a warning look, then turned to her son.

"Start talking, Nate." She said, again her words soft.

"A woman called me today. She said that she had something that she needed to speak to me about. She said that her name was Anna, and she knew Rach."

"Rach?" Deb asked him.

"Rachel. A woman I was seeing before my knee blew out." Nathan rubbed a hand over his face. "I hadn't heard from her in months, and it shocked me that she would go through this Anna person just to get to me. When Rachel walked away, I thought that it was over. That she would find someone new. We weren't serious." He looked up at his mother. "But we were careful."

He stood up, pacing. "I thought that she walked because I couldn't play the game anymore. Turns out that she was pregnant. She was pregnant and she didn't want me to know."

"Why?" He ignored Keith's question. Looking toward his mother, Nathan didn't have to hear her ask to know that she wanted to know the same.

"I don't know. Maybe she didn't think that I could handle it. She didn't think that I would want to be a father to my kid."

"Where is this Rachel?" Deb asked. She'd since then sat on the couch; the baby lay to the side of her.

"She's dead." Nathan said. "Rach died in a car accident, and she left him behind.

-

"Nicholas?"

Deb read the name that had been sewn into the baby's blanket, and then raised a questioning brow at her son. Nathan only nodded. Nicholas David Gattina was what his birth certificate said. Rachel hadn't even given the boy his last name. And why would she? He asked himself angirly. She wasn't even going to tell him that he was her baby's father.

"Your grandfather's name was Nicholas." She sent a quick smile to her son before going back to the baby nestled in her arms. "Well someone needs a change," Deb said as she took the small cap from her grandson's head, smiling as she ran a finger through the cool silkiness of the baby's hair. "And Nathan, I didn't see you bring in a bag."

"I left it in the backseat." He replied running a hand though his own dark hair. "I'll go-"

"Keith, could you get it for me?" Deb asked without looking up. The man said nothing. With a look at Nathan, Keith went to do his wife's bidding. It was only when the other man was out of the room that she again spoke to her son.

"What are you going to do, Nathan?"

"I wish that I knew."

"Oh, I think that you know just well what you're going to do. Seems to me that you just need to come to terms with it. Figure out what to do next."

"She gave me an out." Nathan's voice was so soft that he had to clear his throat before he said the words again. "She gave me an out, Mom."

"And you didn't take it." Deb said to him.

"She told me," he went on. "That I could walk away right now, and she would have raised the baby. Anna had no one else. Rachel and the baby were it. She didn't want me to know, and Anna brought him to me anyway."

"That's right, Nathan." His mother said. "She brought you your son. You wouldn't have taken this boy if you didn't think that for one second he wasn't yours."

_"Look at him, Mom."_ Nathan's voice rose. Nicholas jerked. Startled, began to cry, only to be soothed again by Deb's voice. Nathan started to pace again.

"I don't know how to be a father." He told her. "I don't want to screw this up. I don't want to screw _him_ up."

"Nicolas." Deb said in place of Nathan's "him." "No one knows how to be a parent when they first start out."

"It's not like I had the best role model when it comes to being a dad." Nathan pointed out. "His-_Nicolas's_," he clarified Deb's look, "Mother is gone. How do I be both mother and father when I can barely remember to eat breakfast in the morning?"

She studied her son as he made his way across the carpet once more. "Have you held him, yet?" She asked him. When Nathan stopped in his tracks, doing nothing more than look at her, Deb already had her answer. "You're scared of him." She sensed.

"He's so small."

"You were small." His mother informed him. "You cried all the time while you were in the hospital. But you didn't cry at all when you were with me. Only when you needed something. You never slept in the hospital nursery." His mother continued. "I wouldn't have it. You cried the whole two seconds you were there."

"He hasn't cried." Nathan said. "Not much."

"He knows you mean well." His mother said. Wordlessly, Deb took the bag Keith brought to her and went about changing and feeding her grandson. Nathan watched in awe. His mom made it look so easy.

"He'll stay with us tonight."

_"What?"_ Both men asked at the same time.

"Until Monday evening." Deb specified. "You have until then Nathan to get used to the idea that you are a father now, and that this baby comes before everything, including you.

"I don't have any of your baby things other than your clothes that I refused to let your father throw out. Since Dan decided that he weren't having any more children after you, he got rid of you crib, your swing and the lot. You'll have to get those." His mother informed him.

_Dan,_ Nathan though when he closed his eyes. He was going to have to deal with Dan over this. Yet another thing that he didn't look forward to.

"Don't let this be about him." Deb said as she put the baby to her shoulder, rubbing slow circles on his little back. "We aren't this boy's parents, and you know better. You've lived it, and no matter what you thinking, Nathan, you are not him."

-

When he woke up the next morning, Nathan wasn't stupid enough to think that last night had been a dream. He had a son. He was a father, and he had the next forty-eight hours to get used to it.

"Talk about a miracle." Nathan voice sounded in his room as he situated himself over the edge of his bed.

Like every morning, Nathan's knee throbbed like he'd fallen on it, and like every morning, he didn't take nothing for it. Standing up, he pulled a pair of black sweat pants up over his hips and somewhat limped to the bathroom.

He looked himself in the face and saw the baby his mother held last night. The ears, the hair, the eyes, even the faint cleft Nathan had in his chin had showed up on the baby named Nicholas. He mother would want to call him Nicky.

Nathan would stop that. Nicky was a girl's name whether it was spelled with an I or a Y.

He didn't bother to shave, but he washed his face, brushed his teeth, and then stood under the shower for what fell like only minutes. It was close to an hour. Cooling water didn't deter Nathan from washing every inch of his body, and washing his hair like he did every morning.

He tired to make sense of something that seemed so easy, but nothing would come.

Towel around his hips, he again stared at himself in the mirror. He had to talk to someone. Jake was the logical choice. His friend had a child, a daughter that he didn't like to talk about. They were essentially in the same boat. Jake didn't know about his daughter until she years older. The only had a picture of her that was years outdated. Nathan didn't want to mess with a wound like that, but he needed help.

He'd actually picked up when his mother called. It gave him a real funny feeling in his stomach. The first words out of his mouth were "Is he okay?" His mother had assured him that the baby was just fine. She sounded somewhat choked up, although she tried to hide it. He really did feel bad for the way that things were with he and his mother, but he didn't make them that way. He was just dealing with the fall out the best way that he knew how. Nathan felt the way that he felt, and he wasn't about to change that just because everything had changed on him.

Jake's car was in the back lot when he made it to the bar. It was like the guy never left. Dependable, reliable, Jake. He really hoped that his friend could shed some light on a few things.

Jake nearly belted him when Nathan came into the bar through the kitchen.

_"Scared the hell out of me, man!"_ The man had whispered harshly. "You never come in the back."

"Sorry." Nathan muttered. "I figured you'd be in the kitchen doing something. Didn't mean to scare you, guy."

Jake shook his head, rubbing his knuckles over his rapidly beating heart. "No worries." He replied. Then frowned, looking at his watch. "What brings you by so early in the morning?"

When he unconsciously shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Jake new that there was something up. "Spill it." Was all that he said. "You know that I'll do anything that I can to help."

Nathan let out a heavy breath, the tension so high in his body it was like a live wire. "I need your help."

-

A baby, the man thought. Jake rubbed his knuckles over his chest again. His heart wasn't beating out of his chest. It was breaking for the millionth time since he himself had found out that he had a child of his own; a daughter that he would never know.

"A son." Jake spoke softly to himself. His brows rose as he watched Nathan pace the floor beneath them. Leaning against the sink behind him he crossed his arms over his wide chest.

"Congratulations?" He didn't know what else to say. He couldn't tell how his friend felt about being a father either way.

"I don't know. I don't know about any of it. What the hell do I know about being someone's father?" Nathan said to him. "I mean, look who I had as a role model. How do I know that I won't mess any kid up, let alone my own, the way my dad did me?"

Jake shook his head shrugging his broad shoulders. "You don't."

He only had a little bit of an idea what he had been like for Nathan to have grown up as Dan Scott's son. Jake didn't like the man himself, and only tolerated him as a paying customer.

"You don't." He stood up straight, his own hands slipping into his pockets.

Nathan stopped in his tracks, looking his friend right in his eye.

"I don't know if I'll wake up tomorrow morning and have my life up to this point have been a really bad nightmare. You don't know, Nathan and that's the point. You can't worry about the way that your dad was. You're going to cheat your self and your son if you do."

Nathan worried the fourth finger of his left hand. It was a habit that he'd thought he'd stopped.

"_Will you stop with that?" _His father had berated him on more than one occasion_. "Your mother does that, and it drives me nuts. Just…just cut it out."_

"You're scared, and that's okay. We're all a little scared sometimes. I know you came to me because I'm someone's father." He pushed away from the freezer behind him. "But I wouldn't know the first thing about this because I never got the chance. You took responsibility for a reason, Nate. So, if there's one thing that I can tell you, it's this. Don't miss a minute. Be there and enjoy everything that your son brings to you, and that you can give to him. Because I can guarantee you that if you give that up, let something else take that away, it will eat at you for the longest time. You'll have hole that you cannot fill. And I don't wish that on you. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy."

"I shouldn't have come to you with this."

"It's what friends do."

-

Keith Scott watched from the door as his wife bathed her grandson.

_A grandchild._

He still couldn't believe it. Nathan was a father. And where was he? Not where he was supposed to be that was for damn sure. He made it no secret that he didn't agree with letting the child stay with them until Nathan got used to the fact that he was going to be a father. Deb should have made the man take his son home with him last night and let Nathan get used to being a father by _being _one.

"Stop brooding." Deb spoke over her shoulder. Keith stood up straight. His hands automatically went into his pockets.

"I'm not. I'm just wondering why you're letting him do this."

"Do what?" She asked distractedly. She had her back to him as she wrapped the baby boy in a tight bundle, drying his head and face.

"I think that you're setting yourself up for a world of hurt, Deb."

"Keith,"

"For years, that kid wouldn't talk to you. You've been calling his house every morning since the day he moved back here trying to get him to speak three damn words to you, and everyday he's given you nothing. Not one damn thing. Then out of nowhere he calls you, and comes here. Not because he wants to make things right but because he has a kid with him. A kid that he should be raising because he's that child's father, not dumping off on you because he needs the time to get used to it."

"He's not dumping anything."

"He's using you, Deb. And I'm not about to let it go on any longer."

"Nathan is my son. Nicolas is my grandson. And if this little boy will help things get better between me and my child then Nathan can use me to his heart's content. He is never going to except that you and I are together, Keith. If this is all I have, all that he will give me," she said with so much conviction, her voice was tight with it. "Then I'm taking it. I'm taking it, and I'm holding on to it. With both hands."


	4. Chapter 4

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Four

The day that his son was set to come home, Nathan sat in what used to be one of the spare bedrooms. The walls had been painted a pale blue thanks to Peyton. A wooden crib took up one wall. The directions were easy enough, he thought with a shrug. Never let it be said that man didn't know how to follow them, because he did. Even if it had taken him more than once to get it right.

He was doing this, but he didn't know why. Whether it was because he didn't want to be like his father or because deep down he knew it was right, in the end, he was doing it, and that was all that mattered.

He wouldn't deny what was right there in front of him. Nathan was a better man than that.

He could be.

He wanted to be.

Maybe he needed to be.

He wasn't alone anymore, and he hadn't been since he'd let his immediate family in on the new developments in his life. Peyton sat across from him now, her brow furrowed as she looked over the directions of the swing Nathan had bought along with all the other baby paraphernalia.

"This shouldn't be too hard." She said absently. She was still looking at the directions and missed the look that Nathan had sent her way. Yeah, he'd gotten the bed together, but he was sure that the person who wrote the instructions didn't know what the hell they were talking about when they typed the damn things up. For once, he wished the people would just write in a language that a normal person understood. How hard would it be to screw up 'this goes here, and that goes there'?

Life was already complicated enough without instructions making it worse.

"Maybe you should put it together then." He muttered peevishly.

Across from him Peyton raised a brow then smirked. "Nope." She set the piece of paper aside. "This is your job. I'm just the help, Papa." She said the words with a smile.

She had been shocked out of her skull when she learned that Nathan Scott was a father, and that he was actually choosing to step up. Considering the man who raised him, Peyton would have thought that Nathan would have left the child rearing to the mother. She hated to say that about him, even think it, but it was all right there. He thought that he was too screwed up by his parents to be anyone's father. Nathan didn't think that he had the right, and it broke Peyton's heart. He couldn't see what was there, but she could. For his child's sake, she hoped that her friend opened his eyes soon.

"Nicolas David Gattina."

She looked up. Nathan had his head down. He was looking at his hands, a frown creased his brow. "Shows how much Rachel dreaded to tell me."

"Maybe," she said. "One day, she would have."

"Somehow I seriously doubt that."

"You're angry."

"No. I'm pissed."

Nathan shook his head trying to kick away the thoughts, but he couldn't shake them. He didn't know what had been going on in the woman's mind. Not when she found out that she was pregnant, and not before she died, but Nathan was damned upset. He just didn't understand. Had Rachel told him about her being pregnant instead of just walking away, Nathan didn't know what he would have done, but he would like to have thought that he wouldn't have walked out on his kid. He would have liked to have known when she did that he was going to be a father.

He stood.

Nathan kicked an empty box so hard it flew into a wall. He ran his hands through his hair. There was no going back now. Rachel had made her choice and Nathan had made his.

"_I can guarantee you that if you give that up, let someone take him away, it will eat at you for the longest time. You'll have hole that you cannot fill. And I don't wish that on you. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy."_

He never wanted to feel that pain. Jake was a strong man who could take anything, but this messed with him. Being a father broke him. It broke him because his right had been taken away. He knew who he was but apart had been taken away from him. Stolen.

Nathan never wanted to feel that. He never wanted to endure what his friend went through on a daily basis. It freaked him out. To care about someone that much meant that you gave a part of yourself a way; and not a small piece. A huge one.

He was having second thoughts, thinking that he made a mistake, but Nathan couldn't make himself go back on the choice that he had made. He was probably already attached and just didn't know it. He didn't want to know it.

When he felt her hand on his arm, Nathan stopped staring into nothing. He'd never been so scared in his life and he was glad. He was glad that Peyton was there and he wasn't by himself with this. He put his hands on her shoulders, touched his head to hers, and blew out a slow breath.

"You're going to be okay, Nate." She said.

He only nodded as he was unable to speak.

-

Well, so much for the guy next door, Haley thought as she watched the man in question walk a striking blonde woman out to her car. She couldn't help but be jealous. It took hours for Haley's hair to even resemble the look that the blonde had, because while Haley's hair curled, it turned to frizz in seconds.

Humidity was a bitch.

_I can't believe he has a girlfriend_, Haley thought shaking her head.

No, yes she could. It wasn't that she always wanted something that she couldn't have. In her case, she didn't know that she couldn't have it until after she realized that she wanted it. It was the story of her life.

Moving from the window, she lay across the couch. So the guy had a girlfriend. More than a girlfriend if the assortment of baby stuff he carted into his home was any indication. Best case scenario: the baby gear was for someone else. The blonde woman's friend maybe and they were just stashing it at his place because they were throwing some baby shower.

Worst case scenario: the man next door not only had a baby, but he had a baby mama in the blonde woman. Worst case scenarios were always the truth as far as Haley was concerned, and the sooner she accepted it the better off she would be. Closing her eyes, she sighed. It looked big time as if she and the man next door were not meant to be.

Let the mourning begin.

She didn't have much time to grump over what she never had, but had lost anyway, because her phone rang. Peeking open one eye, she reached for the cordless receiver on the coffee table next to her.

"Haley James." She said into the handheld. She listened for all of five seconds. With a quick "I'll be there in twenty, bye." She hung up the phone, switched off the television, rolled off the couch, and dashed down the hallway into the bathroom. Stripping to the buff, snatching her toothbrush from its cup, Haley jumped into the shower. She stunk. No way was she making this trip sweaty and musty.

Okay, so it was going to take more than twenty minutes, because she wasn't leaving the house until she was damn sure that here head wouldn't turn into a ball a fizz that would cause her to blown away in a good, swift breeze.

She was out the door, down the steps, keys in hand. Backing out of her driveway, Haley had to step on the breaks when a sleek Mercedes sped past her, skidding to a stop in front of the house next door. Pulling her glasses down her nose, Haley watched as an older man with dark hair stormed up the walk. He took the steps two at a time then banged his fist on her neighbor's front door.

The door swung open, and Haley's jaw dropped to the floor boards. The man only wore a towel, and from where she was sitting, tall dark and brooding wasn't mad, he was pissed.

_God, that was hot._

She was one sick puppy.

She knew what Brooke would say: "You need to get laid."

Closing her eyes, she let her head fall back to the head rest behind her. Would she forever want what she just could not have?

-

"What do you want?" Nathan growled. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest it threatened to shoot right out of his body and right into Dan's hands. He'd been scared to death. When he heard the pounding on the door, Nathan thought he'd missed the phone; that his mother was at the door and something was wrong.

Instead, his father stood on his doorstep. There was something in his eyes that almost made him do a double take.

"Tell me that what I heard today is a mistake." The man demanded. Right then and there, Nathan's back went up. He hated for anyone to talk to him that way, especially his father. Like he was committing some great wrong because his wasn't satisfied with whatever his son had or hadn't done.

"I don't know what you heard, and I don't care." He stepped back to close the door, but ended up not closing it at all. Dan pushed his way in, slamming the door behind him. Nathan fists clenched.

Dan could have cared less about his son's anger. He wasn't afraid. If he and Nathan came to blows he was more than confident that he would come out on top. His son was young, he was spry, but Dan was Dan. He knew what he could do.

"I have something to say to you, and you're damn well going to listen. I'm your father dammit!"

"You shouldn't even be allowed to use that word. You don't even know what it means."

"Every thing I've done, I've done for you."

"Don't give me that crap." Turning his back on him, Nathan started to the back of the house. Dan was one step behind him.

"Nathan," he said only to get the door slammed in his face. He felt like charging in there behind him and making the boy listen, but he wasn't up to catching his kid in the buff, and he knew his son. Nathan wasn't one bit modest.

He got it from his mother.

He put his hands on his hips, blew out a breath, then found himself moving down the hallway. Dan pushed open the door that had been cracked open and his eyes went wide. There was the white carpet on what he knew used to be hardwood floor. Dan pushed open the door wider, stepping completely. Stepping into what could only be his son's worst nightmare.

"_No."_ He groaned out harshly.

-

Nathan found his standing in the middle of the room, his head hung, his shoulders slumped, and a hand was covering his face.

"Why aren't you gone?"

Dan looked at his son over his shoulder, his eyes blazing with anger.

"What the hell is this, Nate?" He threw his hand out to encompass the room around him. Turning back to his son, Dan crossed his arms over his wide chest and waited for answers.

Nathan mirrored the man's movement unconsciously. "What does it look like?"

"A nursery." Dan replied. "It looks like a goddamn nursery, son. What I want to know is why the hell you have one?"

"I need one."

"_Why?"_

"You already know."

"Some schmuck tells me that my son has a son of his own, but I know that the guy is lying through his teeth because I don't trust the bastard as far as I can throw him."

Nathan didn't know what pissed him off more, the fact that his father knew or the fact that someone else had told him. It was none of anyone's business, but his. Whether he wanted his father to know or not, the choice was his and not anyone else's.

"Is it yours?"

"_His_ name is Nicolas."

"Is it yours?" Dan asked again.

"You think I would get this all set up if I was sure that the baby wasn't mine?"

"So you've had a paternity test?" Dan tried to confirm. "It would have been nice to know that-"

"I haven't had any test."

The words stopped him in mid rant. His blue-gray eyes, so much like his son's, rounded, hardened, and darkened to the color of a desolate storm.

"What to do you mean...you haven't had any test?" The man asked darkly.

"Just what I said-"

"Son of a..." If he had something to throw, Dan damn sure would have thrown it. Instead, he paced around the room like a raging bull trying to calm himself before he did something stupid. Like put his hands around his son's throat before he stroked out or had a heart attack.

_"Have I taught you nothing?!"_ The man roared. "You don't know that this kid is yours, and you're taking care of it like it is? What about the child's mother? Hanging on your jock for the green stuff, right?" Dan rubbed his fingers together.

"Shut your mouth." Nathan spat.

"Excuse me."

"I said, shut your mouth."

Dan jabbed a finger at him. "Now you liste-"

"No you listen." Nathan cut in. "That baby is not an 'it' and his name is Nicolas. Try using it. His mother? She's dead, so it'll do well for you not to speak ill of her. As for your test, I don't need it. All I have to do is look at him to know that he's mine. You may have no qualms about walking out on your kids, but I'm not you."


	5. Chapter 5

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Five

"Get the test, son." He said as he made his way from the back room. Dan wasn't ready to give up. He wasn't ready to accept that his son's life was over.

"I already told you," Nathan said ask he opened the front door, holding it open. "I'm not taking any test, Dan. I don't need one. I know that the baby is mine."

"Dad! Dad!" Dan shouted again. "Nathan, I'm your father!"

Nathan's brows rose in mock disbelief. Like the words coming out of the man's mouth were this huge revelation. It was like he was being told a secret that he already knew.

"After everything, _everything_, I've done for you, everything that we've worked for-"

"What you've done for me? What _we've_ worked for?" Nathan's words were a challenge.

He slammed the door closed.

"You've never done a damn thing for me. Everything has always been about you. My career with the pros; that was me." Pride sounded loudly in his voice as Nathan thumbed a finger to his own chest.

"This house," he swept his arm behind him. "Is mine. I paid for it. I was the one in the gyms night after night, week after week, shooting free throw after free throw, three pointer after three pointer, basket after basket to get where I am today. So don't you tell me that you've done everything for me. Your days of living through your youngest son died when I graduated. _We_ haven't done a damn thing. _I _am a man. _I _stand on my own two feet.

"I'm not getting the test." Nathan continued. "I know that this kid is mine. You either accept it or you don't, I don't care. I stopped caring what you thought a long time ago."

Dan shook his head slowly. The boy didn't know. He didn't know what he was doing. And he would never have made it as far as he had without him, his father, in his corner.

"Son, things like this...they can hurt you."

"Survived you didn't I?"

"This is a mistake," Dan said as he moved to the door. "And when you finally see it, it may just be too late."

As he watched the door close behind him, Nathan felt anger wash over him. Not anger at his father. Being mad at the man took up too much of his energy. His anger was for Keith. He didn't put it past the son of a bitch putting his nose where it didn't belong.

Nathan seethed.

Checking to see if his wallet and keys were in his pockets, he headed out the door slamming it behind him.

The whole way to his mother's place, Nathan saw red. He had to talk himself down as he peeled into the gravel drive way. The door opened and his mother stepped out. She was holding the baby. He was swaddled in his blue blanket; the top of his dark head could just be seen over the top.

Deb eyed her son with worried confusion. "Nathan?"

"Get the baby in the house." He said to her. "Take him in the back with you and stay with him."

"What's going on?" His mother wanted to know.

Nathan stopped, looking at her. "Take the baby inside. Mom."

Her eyes never wavered from his. She was trying desperately to read something, anything, from her son. When she got nothing, Deb finally nodded.

"Okay."

"Where's, Keith?"

She closed her eyes. _"Oh, Nate."_

"Mom,"

"In the living room."

"Take the baby in the house. Your husband and I need to have a talk."

-

Nathan growled, _"Where the fuck do you get off?" _

Keith looked from the game playing on the television, to his brother's youngest son. "You're in my home, Nathan. Where do you?"

"This is my mother's home." He all but spat. "You just live here."

"Deb is my wife."

"She's my mother." He countered. "But not even that would have given her the right to go to Dan. So I ask again...where the fuck do you get off?"

"_Keith!"_

Both men looked to see that Deb had joined them. The baby wasn't with her. The woman's eyes were almost black. She was mad. No, she was pissed. And all that emotion was targeted at her husband. Had he been sixteen again, Nathan would have smirked.

"He needed to know." Keith tried to explain.

"It wasn't your place!" Nathan snapped. "Just because you sleep in my mother's bed does not give you the keys. It doesn't make you captain. King Keith, jack-assed ruler of all things moron."

"_Nathan Scott."_ His mother said her eyes on him. "Now you've crossed a line."

"He crossed the line when he brought his baby over here." Keith said as he rose from the couch. He turned the TV off with the remote in his hands, and then tossed it to the couch behind him.

"For damn near ever, you've been treating your mother like a second class citizen,"

"She's got nothing to do-"

"She's got everything to do with this." Keith cut in. "You haven't wanted anything to do with her in years. When you finally show up, it's not because your her son, it's because you have a problem. I won't let you treat her that way any longer, you hear me?"

"Hear me." Nathan moved closer his voice so low it was almost eerie quiet. "I don't give a good damn what your last name is or who you're married to. You had no right sticking your nose in something that has not a damn thing to do with you. Got me? My relationship with my mother is _none _of your goddamn business.

"You've already done enough damage to it. And as far as my child goes, he has nothing to do with you either." He turned to his mother.

"I won't keep you from him, but your husband," Nathan pointed a finger in the other man's direction without sparing him another glace. "Is not welcome. Call, come see him, but do not bring this asshole with you." He looked at Keith when he spoke again, but his words were still to his mother. "Nicolas won't be coming back here."

The two men stood head to head. Both breathing fire. Chests heaving, eyes blazing.

"I'll be taking him home with me now." Nathan spoke.

"What did he say, Nathan?" Deb wanted to know. When he didn't answer, she asked again. "What did your father say, Nate?"

"Before or after he accused my son's late mother of being a gold-digging tramp?"

"_God."_ She breathed.

"Could you go get him please?" Nathan asked. Deb looked at her husband. Her withering gaze told him that they would most definitely be taking about this later.

But not too much later. His mother wasn't one to procrastinate. But, she also wasn't one to make a scene. She would deal with her husband as soon as Nathan and Nicolas were on their way.

Good, Nathan thought. He hoped she ripped Keith a new one.

-

"Deb,"

She held up a hand. "It wouldn't be a good time for you to say anything to me right now." She warned.

"I'm not about to be attacked for doing what I thought was right."

"What you thought was right?" She said incredulously. "What you thought was right was right out of the Dan Scott manual. How could you, Keith?"

"I'm trying to protect you. That boy is using you, Deb."

"The hell he is!" Deb damn near shouted. "If anything, I'm using him! Don't you think it's about time the two of you got over this? You're both adult _men_, and I will not choose between my husband and my son." Deb found herself pacing, and she hated it. Hand to her head, she had to control her breathing. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so good and mad that she was ready to take on the world and then some.

"You were right when you said what you did about the way that Nathan has treated me." She was surprised at her even tone.

"I was only trying to protect you."

"And I love you for it, really, I do. But Nathan was right, too. The relationship I have with my son is _none _of your business, Keith. You went to Dan about Nathan's son, and that too was not your place. You owe Nathan an apology."

"I will not-"

"You will." Deb cut in smoothly. "Not because I've said it, or demanded it, or anything of the like. You'll apologize to Nathan because you know that you were wrong, and you're the kind of man who can admit it."

Keith's sigh was heavy as he watched the woman he loved walk away. He'd made a mistake. He knew that, but even being the man that he was, Keith hated to admit that he was wrong. But once it was out there, there was no taking it back. He would apologize to his nephew, but no way would be cease to protect his wife. He was Deb's and she was his. They took vows and he would protect her.

Even if it was from her own son.

-

She couldn't sleep. Sitting at the hospital with her sister had been draining, but it was a happy drain. Haley an aunt again. Twice over to identical twin girls. Margaret & Marissa, or as Haley dubbed them, Mari & Mags. She'd have to see how long that lasted. The girls' father was an uptight professor type, and while she loved the guy, he was a good man, and he loved her sister, but the dude was a stick in the mud, and if he had his way the girls would be in frilly dresses until they went to college.

A James woman was many things. Boring was not one of them. Byron was good man...he just needed to loosen him up a little bit. They'd work on him.

Giving up on sleep, Haley padded to barefoot over the hardwood floors of her home to the kitchen. It was too damn hot to sleep, and ice cream was the answer to everything.

Not even bothering to turn on the light, she took her dessert of choice from the door of the freezer, fumbling around in the drawer at her hip for something to dish the ice-cream up with. She didn't flinch when she came up with a fork. Tossing the ice cream top into the empty sink...she could not stand dirty dishes...Haley padded back to her room.

A light caught her eye as she passed through the living from. Turning mid-step, she padded to the window just inside her curtains. She had a clean shot into the living room of the man next door. He was up. She'd just seen his head and shoulders move to one-side of the room. She waited and he showed again.

He sat down hard in the chair in font of the window. She could see the tension in his body. She could almost feel it come off him in waves. He had his arms braced on his thighs, his head down. Dark hair fell over his forehead. His fingers slid into it, his palms pressing to into his forehead.

Unconsciously Haley pressed a hand to the glass of her window. She watched as the man settled back into the chair as if he had the weight of the world, the weight of the planet, on his shoulders. His head fell back against the chair's cushions. His eyes were closed.

She felt this all consuming need to go to him. Not because she wanted to fix him, or needed to fix him. But because he needed someone. He was alone and he needed someone to just be there with him.

When his eyes came open, Haley's breath caught in her throat, beat loudly in her ears. He was staring right at her, his eyes so focused, so intense it was almost hard to stand. They stood like that staring at each other neither one able to look away.

But he did.

He looked away pushing himself out of his chair. He moved away from the window and not once did he look back.

Haley moved quickly to the closest seat. She felt heavy all over, her head was spinning and she couldn't catch her breath. She rubbed her hands over her face trying to pull herself out of it but nothing was working. She stared at the shadow of her couch.

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

Shit.


	6. Chapter 6

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Six

"Scott." He grumbled into the phone.

"Morning, sunshine."

He didn't know why, or how, but Nathan knew that she was smiling. He wanted to ring her neck.

"It's too damn early, Peyton."

"It's ten o'clock, Nate." She was quiet, then, "Your mom called me this morning." She said softly. "I'm coming by to see my godson, so the both of you get decent."

Nathan's eyes came open. He was tired of his mom calling Peyton. He knew why she did it. He knew he should thank her for it. It was because of her that the girl that used to be his ex was more of like his sister now despite of it because Peyton had always been there whether Nathan had wanted for needed her to be. But he wouldn't. He wouldn't thank his mother. They weren't there.

And they probably never would be.

"Nate?"

"Godson?"

"You heard me."

He was too tired to argue. He sighed out a breath. "Yes ma'am."

It wasn't frickin' ten a.m. Stretched out on the floor, Nathan attempted to will himself back to sleep.

Nothing doing. Even with the shades down, sunlight took over the room. It that wasn't enough to keep him awake, everything hurt. His back, his head, his knee. Despite every ached he rubbed the sleep from his eyes then started in on his morning push-ups. After when he pushed himself off the floor and his knee gave way cracking on the hardwood floor under him. Nathan lay on his back for long minutes breathing through the pain that shot through his knee, through his leg and into his stomach.

He wasn't going to take the pills.

His mother called while he had still been on the floor, and after assuring her that both he and child were still alive, Nathan pushed himself up again ignoring the shooting pain that seemed to take over his whole right side and limped around the room in an attempt to quell it. Nicolas laid in the middle of the bed on his back surrounded by so many pillows Nathan had slept with a sheet under his head as a makeshift one last night.

He hadn't known what had made him bring the boy into the room with him last night. He's gotten up so many times, banged so many body parts walking in the dark maybe that was why the baby was sleeping in the middle of his bed now.

Nathan found himself watching the rise and fall of the baby's small chest and thinking about the night before. The woman in the window. He couldn't let himself get involved with her. It wasn't just him now. He had a son. He was a father and he was learning from scratch. Romance…sex, he clarified in his own mind, was not on the menu.

He hadn't seen her, but he had felt her there. He'd been sitting in that chair wondering what to do next, how he was going to make it all work, and he felt her. When he opened his eyes, he could swear that she was looking right at him. Her hand was pressed to the glass of her window. He could see her silhouette, but not her face. Not her eyes, but she had been looking at him.

Hadn't she?

Nathan jerked to attention when Peyton stepped into the bedroom out of nowhere. He frowned at her. She had never been in his bedroom before. Nicolas was crying. She spared him a glance as if to say, "Are you deaf?" then crawled on the bed with the baby.

"Goodness." Peyton breathed tucking her hair behind her ears. "You are Nathan Scott up and down aren't you? You don't need any damn test to tell you that this baby is yours." Peyton told Nathan as she picked the baby up from the middle of the bed and cradling him to her. "But I would get one anyway."

"Dan get to you, too?"

A slight frown creased her brow, but she didn't look up at him. Her eyes were closed as she rubbed a hand slowly up and down the baby's back quelling the baby's cries to soft wimpers. "No, why?"

"Dan suggested the same thing when he barreled over here yesterday. After he called my son's mother a tramp."

Peyton opened her eyes and looked at him, her brows raised. "Your father is a bastard, and I'm not agreeing with the man's reasons for it. I can look at this baby and tell that he is yours just like you can. But you don't know about this woman's family." Peyton started out of the room and down the hall toward the nursery. She put the baby on the changing table and Nicolas howled in outrage.

"They could come out of nowhere and want to claim this beautiful boy, Nathan. Get the test for protection if anything." She told him as she changed his son's diaper like it was second nature to her.

He was shaking his head. "Her parents are dead. That was what Rach's friend told me. Her sister is alive, but I'm not worried about her. Anna said that the two hadn't spoken in years. What reason would she have to come after him?"

"Maybe because this little boy is what's left of her sister. Her family."

He did not like the sound of that. "I'm his father. I have the rights."

"But there's no proof. Legal proof." Peyton amended, cutting off Nathan's tirade. "The courts don't look at physical appearances. A blood test will prove that this little boy is yours. It'll be documented, and since his mother is deceased, you'll be the one with the rights and the custody. It's being smart, Nate. Don't beg this off just because Dan suggested it."

"Demanded it."

She looked at him now, her gold-green eyes studying him. "You're afraid." It wasn't a question.

"No."

"Yes." She said to him. "You're afraid to take the test because you think that there is a chance that he won't be yours." She smiled softly. "You love him already." Nathan said nothing, and she didn't push. Finished changing him, Peyton handed the baby to Nathan. He stood rod still breathing deep. The tension in his body began to aggravate the baby.

"Relax, Nate." She told him. Nathan swallowed and tired to do just that. It didn't work. He gave him back to Peyton. She quieted him while Nathan paced.

"I don't want that man in my son's life."

"Your choice."

"Do you really want to be his godmother?"

Peyton nodded. "Unless you have another choice."

"No." Nathan told her. "If I had thought about it, I would have asked you. And Jake," He rubbed a hand over his unshaven face. "I want him to be Nicolas's godfather. In case something happens to me…I want it to be you guys…I need a will."

"You don't need to think about that right now." She told him. "What about Tim?"

"What?"

"What about Tim?" Peyton said again. "He's your best friend. Do you think that he would be upset if you asked Jake to be your baby's godfather and not him?"

Nathan thought about it. "Can a baby have two godfathers?"

"I don't see why not."

He watched his son fall asleep against Peyton's shoulder and had to swallow again. This was a real at it got. Not a dream, not a mistake. His life.

"If I get this test," Nathan asked her. "Will I be able to change his last name to Scott?"

"Yeah. The test will prove that Nics is yours and you'll be well within your rights to change his last name."

"Nics?"

"Every man needs a nickname." She smirked.

"And mine?"

"No comment."

Nathan rubbed a hand over his face. "Keith told Dan."

"Told Dan what?"

"That I had a son. That's why he came over here yesterday. And naturally we had it out about my life and my career and how much he's 'done' for me since I first drew breath."

"I didn't see him making those sweet three's on Sports Center."

Nathan snorted. "Don't tell him that." Absently, he reached over rubbing a finger lightly over the dark cap of his son's head. Nic was right at home snuggled up next to Peyton. His eyes came open then closed again.

"So you went over there?" She laid the baby in the bed and it was like a magnet pulled Nathan to the side of the crib. He looked on as his son slept unaware of Peyton watching him. She nodded to herself feeling better about the situation.

Family took care of each other.

"Yeah." Nathan nodded. "I went."

"Do you feel better?"

"No. I'm still pissed."

"That he went to Dan or that he messed your family?"

Nathan stepped away from the crib.

"My family was already messed before Keith came in, Dr. Phil." He washed his hands over his face. "But that doesn't mean that he wasn't wrong. I mean, I know that my dad is a son of a…" He opted not to elaborate on what his father was in front of his son. As many slips as he had made already, Nathan wasn't all too sure that babies didn't store up swears until they learned how to speak. People picked up all kinds of things in their sleep.

He wasn't taking any chances.

"He loved my mom. In his own screwed up way, Dan loved her. And Keith was supposed to be his brother. You don't do that to your brother whether you like him, or not. I wouldn't do that do mine. And I can't stand the guy."

"What about your mom?"

"I'm not happy with her about it either. She could have left, Peyton. She didn't stay because of me. She stayed for him. I would have gone with her anywhere. She could have divorced Dan instead of carrying on behind his back with another man. She was wrong too."

"You love him."

"I wish to God that I didn't. I wish that I could cut Dan Scott completely out of my life, out of my world. It would be so much easier."

"If it were easy, it wouldn't be called life."

"You hang out with Jake too much."

When Peyton smiled it was sad. "Doesn't mean that he's wrong." She brushed a hand over the sleeping baby's back. She and Nathan walked out of the nursery. He closed the door behind him.

"How is he?" Nathan asked. "Jake. Maybe I shouldn't have gone to him with all of this."

"Don't do that Nate." She told him. "He's in a bad place right now, but he'll be okay. Okay as he can be. Does this mean that you and your mom are back on track?"

"This doesn't mean anything."

-

"Who's the bony blonde?" The two of them watched as Haley's next door neighbor walked the woman out to her car. They stood and talked for a few moments before the women enveloped the man in a hug that he returned.

"Don't know." Haley replied. "She's either his girlfriend or the mother of his child."

She didn't dare look at her friend because she knew what she would see. Accusing hazel eyes that would roll up into her head, followed by smart ass comments. She didn't need Brooke to tell her what she already knew. This guy was just like all the others and if she wanted to break the cycle, then she had to stay away from him. End of story.

"Nice ass."

"I know right."

They watched as neighbor guy walked up the walk way an into the house. Their eyes were glued to his backside until his front door closed behind him. She knew that she should be, and she would slap herself for it later, but it wasn't his body that Haley was thinking about. Okay, not just his body, because…._God._

It was the night before.

She couldn't sleep last night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his. And when her mind finally let her sleep, it messed with her in her dreams. He was in them in bed right next to her kissing her, touching her like she was his and he had right to; like they had belonged to each other. She was going nuts because she didn't even know the man. She didn't even know his name and she was dreaming about him making love to her at night.

What did that say about her?

_Besides_ that she needed a love life that existed in reality.

"It's okay to look, but Hales-"

"I know. I know."

"Do you _know_ how demented it is to eat ice cream with a fork."

She stabbed the fork into the barely touched half pint of mint chocolate chip. "Better than a spoon." You couldn't jab with a spoon.

"On what planet?"

They moved away from the window. Brooke slid into the recliner, propping her feet up on the coffee table in front of her. Haley lifted her brow as if to say "move 'em" Brooke just stared back.

"Bitch."

"It's why you love me." She grinned.

"I know you didn't drop by here just because you wanted to see my person." Haley gestured toward her with her fork. "Spill it."

"He asked me to marry him."

Haley spit the ice cream in her mouth nearly across the room. Brooke dodged out of the way of the ABC desert.

"Sorry," Haley held out a hand. "I'm sorry."

"Guess I know how you feel about the situation."

"All of a sudden he asks you to marry him. When was this?"'

"Last week. And it wasn't all of a sudden."

Her eyes got huge. "And you're just _now_ telling me about it? What the duce?"

Brooke hooked a thumb at the window. "You didn't exactly burn up my phone lines to tell me about Hottie McWounded next door."

Haley pointed a finger at her. "This is different and you know it, Davis. Monumental big difference. I don't even know my neighbor's first name, only that he has a baby and a possible baby mama/girlfriend. You, on the other hand, are asked for you hand in marriage to your man child boyfriend…fiancé…whatever. Point is, I win."

"Okay," she squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"Damn right." Haley nodded. "There has to be a reason why you haven't."

Brooke was silent.

"Well?"

Brooke covered her face with her hands, muffling her reply. Haley cupped her hand behind her ear leaning forward. "What was that? Can't hear you back here in the cheap seats."

"I said you were right." She looked at her friend right now. "Chris doesn't make me happy, but I've tried to be. But it's not going to work between us. I know that now. When we kiss…it's like…"

"Kissing your brother."

"Ew, no!" Brooke actually gagged making Haley sputter to laughter. "More like cousins."

"First cousins?"

"Haley, God!"

"Okay, right, sorry, go on."

"Point is that there's no fire. There's no, oh-sweet-Jesus-god moment when he walks into a room. I don't even feel tempted to wolf-whistle when he steps out of the shower."

"Kiss of death."

"It's just not there hasn't been for a long ass time now. I don't love him, Haley."

"So you've told him no?"

"Tonight. He wants my answer by tonight."

"Good luck."

-

After Brooke left, Haley made her way out to her small shed. She'd been waiting for weeks to do this, and her backyard wasn't all that big. But it was big enough.

A wide grin moved across her face when she pulled the tarp from over her rider mower.

"Oh, baby." She whispered to no one. "Mama's gonna have fun today."

She debated piling her hair on top of her head to beat the heat but in the end decided against it. It wasn't like it would stay anyway. Besides, she was having a good hair day. She settled in to mow the lawn and laughed at her self. There was something seriously wrong with her that she was happy as clam just to mow the lawn.

She smirked.

Sure, she liked the smell of fresh cut grass, but….It wasn't the lawn.

It was the ride.

She'd coveted her dad's riding mower since she was six. She hadn't gotten to ride it until she was nine. She volunteered to cut the grass every time after that because she liked riding so much. Her parents hadn't had to pay her.

All they had to do was give her the keys.

With Chaka Khan wailing in her ears about what she's got being able to set her man on fire, Haley got to task. But her mind started to wander. Elaborate fantasies popped in her mind of the guy next door resting his arms on the fence that divided their properties, smiling at her with a crooked man smile, crooking a finger at her.

She frowned and pushed the thought away. Last night was disconcerting enough, even more so while she was sleeping. Right now she was wide awake. When another one popped in her mind of the man in question doing pull-ups all sweaty in whatever room he deemed as his personal workout room she had to work hard to swallow.

Haley fanned herself with a hand then rolled her eyes.

"That's just what you need, James. To pass out from heatstroke." She shook her head, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose determined to think about something else. She shut her mind off to everything but the song playing in her ears.

"_Tell me something good…Tell me that you love me…yeah. Tell me something good….Tell me that you like it…yeah."_

Haley felt a heat on the back of her neck and turned her head to look over her shoulder. Only to stare right into the stormy gaze of the guy next door.

-

Nathan rested his hands at the sink in his kitchen. He switched on the faucet filling his hands with water as cold at the tap would allow. He splashed it on his face, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. He stuck his head under the cold water and let if pour of his scalp.

"_You ain't got no kind of feelin' inside. I got something that will sho 'nuff set your stuff on fire..."_

Even with his ears filling with water Nathan could hear the words as clear as day. He jerked his head up swearing hotly when the back of his head connected with the faucet.

He looked out just in time to see that tail end of a cherry red rider mower move out of his line of vision. The window was closed, but it was still like whoever was crooning was right next to him singing in his ear her husky sweet voice sending a rushed feeling down his spine.

"_You refuse to put anything before your pride...What I got will knock all your pride aside."_

He knew that song. He remembered his mom singing it, only not so well, in the shower. Being a little kid when he heard her try and sing it, he didn't know what the hell she was singing about.

But he knew now.

He pushed the window open, stuck his head out and…

"_Tell me something good…Tell me that you love me…yeah. Tell me something good…Tell me that you like it…yeah."_

He could hear the words mixed in with the sound of the mower. He knew it was her singing. Closing the window, Nathan absently grabbed up the baby monitor, sticking it in his pocket, and went to the sliding door of the living room.

Late afternoon heat blasted him. He squint his eyes against the sun and the water that dripped into his face. Nathan barely noticed the heat from the cemented porch that touched on the bottoms of his bare feet. He crossed the cool grass to stand at the fence that divided their property and took her in. The mower was the same color as her car. She could have done a good job with a push mower, but it was obvious that this girl liked to ride. Nathan crossed his arms over the top of the fence that separated his from hers.

She had her hair loose. The curly dark gold strands fell to the middle of her back. It blew softly in her face when the air moved around them. She wore a black tank, khaki shorts that showed off slightly tanned legs that went up to her neck. Her feet were bare. From where he stood, he could see the red polish that had been painted on them.

"_Got no time is what you're known to say…I make you wish there was forty-eight hours to each day…"_

When she tossed her hair off her shoulders, Nathan saw the headphones in her ears. On closer inspection he saw an Ipod clipped to the waist of her shorts. He found himself swallowing hard when her hands moved from the wheel of the mower and went into her hair. She pulled her hair up off her neck and twisted it into a quick knot on top of her head…

"_Your problem is you ain't been loved like you should…What I got to give will sho 'nuff do you good…Tell me something good..."_

Nathan stood almost mesmerized as the mower went on. Her shoulders moved with the beat of the song, and if he wasn't mistake he hips moved in the mower's seat.

"_Tell me that you love me…yeah. Tell me something good…Tell me that you like it…yeah."_

She looked over her shoulder and everything inside him froze. He couldn't move from where he stood if he tried.

He didn't want to.

_Shit._

He could handle her catching him watching her. That was all good. He took a mental picture of her looking over her shoulder at him, a single brow rose. When she tipped her shades down to look at him with those amber colored eyes, Nathan felt all the spit dry up in his mouth.

_Shit._


	7. Chapter 7

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Seven

"A kid? Are you kidding me? This I have to see with my own eyes." Tim shook his head. When Peyton slid a picture under his nose, Tim's jaw dropped to the bar's polished wood. He looked up at Peyton, his eyes agog. He looked over at Nathan. He watched as his friend sipped his beer and said nothing.

"Dude, you have a kid."

Nathan nodded slowly.

"Congratulations?"

Was it? He couldn't wait to get out of the house. Soon as he mother pulled up he'd had his coat on and he was practically out the door. He needed to get away, to take a break, to catch his breath. He was so lost and there was no map.

Babies had different cries he read in some stupid book he was sure Peyton had put on his porch. He didn't believe that mess. Every cry sounded the same. Every time it started Nathan had to go through the list. Was he wet, was he hungry, when it was none of the above he had to walk around with a screaming baby in his arms trying to quiet him so he could get some sleep, hell, hear him own self think.

He was blowing this big time.

Nathan was saved from answering when the door to the bar opened sucking out the cool air that attempted to keep the place cooled off.

It was like he had tunnel vision. His eyes first touched on her hair that she'd left down. It curled past her shoulders. His finger tips itched and Nathan clenched his hand into a fist. When she turned their way, there was a smile on her face and in her eyes. She was laughing at something that the woman behind her had said. Her head was tilted back, husky laughter floated to the ceiling.

He made himself look away. Setting the glass in his hand down smartly, Nathan got up from his seat moved behind the bar and pushed through to the back and into the kitchen. Peyton and Jake shared a look then the man followed his friend.

"Nate?"

"I'm screwing this up, Jake."

The other man crossed his arms over his chest, and then leaned a shoulder into the wall behind him.

"I wanted to leave. Get out of the house. Get away from my own kid."

"You think your mom never wanted to get away from you?"

Nathan's head shot up, his eyes shot iced blue daggers at his friend. Jake held his hands up in surrender.

"Every parent needs a break don't you think? Nathan, come on. You didn't expect any of this. You made a choice to deal with it, but that doesn't mean that you're not supposed to want a break from the situation. Even if it's for just one night.

"Who's the woman?"

"What?"

"The woman you wanted to swallow whole." Jake said. "She gotta name?"

"I'm sure she does, but I don't know it. Don't want to know it. Can't know it."

"Why the hell not?"

"I've got a kid."

"So that makes you a monk? You taking a vow of celibacy now, Scott?"

"This is serious, Jake." Nathan told him. "I can't get involved with another woman."

"This about Rachel?"

"No," Maybe. "This is about me. I've got a kid that I have to take care of. That I'm choosing to take care of and I can't get involved with anyone right now. I already have too much on my plate. And that one…"

"What?"

"She's trouble."

"How so?"

"When you look at Peyton what do you see?"

Jake pushed away from the wall. "I'm not following."

"Yeah you are. When you look at Peyton Sawyer, Jake, what do you see?"

"A woman I can wake up to every morning." He swallowed hard. He'd never said that to anyone else; much less admit it to himself. That he was saying it to Nathan, saying it out loud…

"What's Peyton got to do with you and the woman out there?"

"I don't want her to be the woman I want to wake up to every morning. I don't want a woman to wake up to every morning, Jake."

"Who says this girl is that?"

"I'm saying that woman is that." Nathan told him.

"Okay, fine, if she's it, this woman whose name you don't even know by the way, you can't put your parents' marriage up against what you could, possibly, maybe have with that woman. Hell, any woman."

Nathan shook his head. "Not taking any chances."

"Come on, Nate."

"If it were just me, I'd be all over her. But it's not."

"Just because you're a dad doesn't mean that you can't have something, someone for yourself. Jesus, Nate. You're gonna let the anger you have at your mom keep you from having anything. Spoil every woman who comes your way because their all the same?"

"I didn't say that."

"No?"

"No."

"You didn't have to say the words, Nathan. It's written all over your face. Better hope Peyton doesn't walk in or your ass is all but grass. Every woman isn't your mom."

"This doesn't have anything to do with her."

"Bullshit."

"I didn't ask your advice. I didn't ask you to come back here. I swear you and Peyton have the same freaking brain or something. You can't leave anything can you?"

"I'm not built that way. And this woman, whatever her name is, she's under your skin I'm guessing. It's hard to kick them out once they take root."

"I hear you say that not every woman is like my mom. Well, back at you. Not every woman is like Nikki."

Jake shook his head. "Not the same."

"Why the hell not?"

"I'm not worried that Peyton would do something like that to me should we have a child together, should we be anything more to each other than what we are. She's not that kind of person. I can see the difference, Nathan, you can't. And don't think that you can turn his on me; goad me. That's just going to piss me off."

The two men stood silent, tension rolling of the both of them in waves. Jake moved away from the door as it was pushed open. Peyton stepped in and stopped cold. She looked from Jake to Nathan, then back to Jake.

"Need a little help out here, Jagielski. Crowd's getting restless."

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I'll be right out."

Peyton spared one last look at Nathan then walked out.

"Don't cut yourself off, Nathan. That's all I'm telling you. All that's going to do is gyp you and maybe even your son of some good that could come your way. Doing this, keeping at it the way that you are could make you resent that little baby for the stupid mistake you're about to make."

-

"Maybe we should do this some other time."

"What, why?"

"Because you look like someone just hit your dog, Brooke." Haley laughed.

"I'm allergic."

"You miss him."

"Oh-ho. No."

"Me thinks-"

"I don't like being without."

Haley's eyes grew wide. She should be used to this, she should, but when it came to Brooke Davis, "what you see is what you get" still made her eyes goggle out of her skull.

"You've been single all of three weeks."

"18 days. That's a long time. If there was one thing I can say about Chris, he was there when I got home. God," she covered her face with her hands. "I'm turning to a romantic. Haley James, you're freaking contagious! I did not want to have a man in the bed next to me when I woke up in the morning, every freaking morning. It was not a requirement." Brooke pointed a finger at her.

"You did this to me."

Haley was laughing too hard to be outraged. When she finally calmed herself down to tell Brooke Davis just the way that it was, she started laughing again at the accusing look on her face. She pointed and attempted to speak but ended up laughing even harder.

"You're a closet romantic, Brooke." She finally got out.

She at the look of horror on her face, Haley lost it again.

"I am not, you take that back!"

Haley slapped her hand on the table between them, tears leaked from her eyes. She swiped them away, careful not to mess her make up.

"You just want to be in love, sweetheart. Don't you hit me." She laughed again. "It's not a bad thing, Brooke. You want a monogamous relationship. So what? Every girl wants their ideal for however long."

"I didn't used to want an ideal guy."

"Sure you did."

"Shut up."

She grinned. "About time you grew up."

Brooke made a face. "I think you just insulted me?"

"How?"

"Did you not just call me old?"

"God, woman. I said you grew up. Not the same thing." Haley sighed. "I'm just saying that your discriminate now is all, and you didn't tell Chris Keller no right of the bat when he asked you to marry him. That says something. Maybe now you want to be married and you just haven't found that guy yet."

She knew that was what she wanted. Haley would love to wake up to her perfect guy every morning. She wanted the big family, the marriage like her mother and her father's. She never saw two people more fitted for each other than her parents. Her father was the strong teddy bear of a man and her mother was nuts. She had a sense of humor to rival any woman. She could laugh at anything. And she was so strong. She was still strong, but she let her dad take care of her when he wanted to.

_I want that,_ Haley thought.

She made the mistake of looking toward the bar. He was standing there slinging drinks like he owned the place. He was smiling now, laughing at what the guy next to him had said. His dark hair fell over his brow making his eyes all the more intense.

Brooke watched her friend moon over her next store neighbor who was a bartender it appeared. She took the guy in too. There was something so familiar about him. Like she had seen the guy somewhere before…

"I know him!"

"What? How?" Haley looked from the man behind the bar to her friend.

"Haley, he's Tree Hill's second coming according to every sports nut to ever breathe air in this town."

Haley pointed at herself. "Not one of them."

Brook huffed out a breath. "Nathan Scott, cat-lady. He went to school with us. Hot jock. Tree Hill basketball god. Ring a bell."

"Should it?"

"Nevermind. That guy, that man you're drooling over used to be one of the highest paid professional basketball players out there."

"Used to be." Haley asked, her gaze traveling back to the man at the bar. Nathan Scott…Scott…

"Dan Scott's son." She said and Brooke nodded. Everyone in town knew who Dan Scott was whether you played sports or not. Why his son didn't factor with Haley was beyond her. If she went to school with him, she didn't remember. That time was a blur for her. Not that she was wasted from the time she woke up on Friday to the time she went to bed on Sunday. She hated high school. The people were fake, the teachers were biased, and every girl there wanted to be…she looked at her friend.

Never mind.

"Used to be," Brooke went on. "Because he totally blew out his knee during the playoffs that last year that he played and that was all he wrote. His team lost in the playoffs and haven't been back since. Sad really. You're hottie is loaded."

"He's not my hottie."

"He's so your hottie." Brooke smirked. "Here's and idea, and tell me if you heard it before. Talk to him."

"Uh, hello. There's still the blonde. You remember her. The one who could he be his girlfriend and not to mention his child's mother. I don't poach."

"Maybe the mother of his child, but not his girl."

"And you know this…how?"

"I have eyes." Brooke nodded toward the bar. "I give them friends at the least, used to be lovers at the most. If something was there before it's so used to be now. See the big guy with the hair? He's got a thing for the blonde. He's standing so close because he likes the way that she's smells. And she's letting him because she likes for him to stand close."

All Haley could do was shake her head. To anyone who didn't know the woman, it would be a bunch of bull, but Haley knew Brooke, and she never doubted her when it came to relationships. Other people's relationships that were not hers. She hated to take her to a movie. The woman could smell out a plot like a bloodhound.

"Where…where are you going? Brooke?"

"I'm going to sit at the bar. Coming?"

"No. No! Brooke Davis, you get your ass back here! Oooh you…!" Snatching up her purse, Haley followed her imagining where she would hide her friends body after she murdered her with he own designer shoe.

It was like two seats just magically opened up for them.

-

Nathan kept telling himself that he did the right thing. Leaving when he did. He was officially off, and he needed to be home. Yeah, he heard what Jake had said about needing a break. But it wasn't the same. It wasn't. He had his break from the fear and now it was time for him to push through it and be more to his son.

Nic had been asleep when he had gotten home. Nathan stood for he didn't know how long by his son's bed before he picked him up and held him. Really held him. The baby hadn't woken up at all. Nathan sat in the recliner in the living room and just held him. It was easier somehow.

His mother had tired to talk to him about Keith, but Nathan hadn't wanted to hear it. She tried to talk to him about a lot of things, but they weren't like that and Nathan didn't feel the need to change it because he had a son now. It was probably wrong, but…he couldn't change the way that he felt.

But he had apologized.

"_He was right."_

"_I'm sorry?"_

"_Your husband," he explained. "He was right about the way that I had been treating you. I shouldn't have come to you like that. I should have dealt because you and I aren't like that."_

"_I want to be 'like that', Nathan. I'm your mother."_

"_That isn't an argument that's going to work with me. Dan said the same thing about him being my father, but it doesn't mean anything."_

"_It doesn't mean anything?"_

"_Not what it should."_

He sat on the porch now. It had cooled off and he didn't want to be inside. The baby monitor sat next to him on the step. He washed a hand over his face, across the back of his neck.

He register the truck pulling into the driveway next door. He didn't hear the car door slamming shut either. In fact he didn't even look up until he felt her standing there. Even in the dark Nathan could see the amber flecks in her brown-brown eyes. She looked almost as shocked as he felt at the fact that she was standing right there next to him.

After the scene in their respective backyards, Nathan told himself that he would do whatever it was that he had to do to keep away from this woman. She could hurt him if he let her, he admitted to himself.

"Hi."

"Hey."

"Look, about the bar, about Brooke."

"Is that her name, the woman with pit-bull tendencies?"

"Yeah, that's Brooke. You have to know her to love her. Anyway, I'm sorry about her not so covert operation. I could say tell you that she didn't mean to pry, but that would be a lie."

"I didn't mind."

"Really, you tore out of there fast enough."

She hadn't meant to say that, she really hadn't, the words just came out of her face like a busted faucet.

"It wasn't because of your friend."

"You know, you're my neighbor and I don't even know your name."

He smiled.

Her eyes squeezed shut.

"That didn't come out right." She knew his name. Brooke hadn't made it a secret that she knew who he was. She talked basketball to him the whole time they were at the bar. One of these nights she was going to pick that woman's brain for every piece of information that she had. She talked the game like she cared. She knew stats and weak points in teams. She was flippin' Rain-woman basketball edition.

"My name is Haley, Haley James." held out her hand. Nathan down then slowly took her hand in his. Soft. Just like he knew she would be.

Shit.

"Haley, Haley James. I'm Nathan. Nathan Scott."

"Nice to meet you."

"A pleasure." He replied. They stood there in silence staring at each other. The moment was broken when Nicolas started to cry.


	8. Chapter 8

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Eight

He pulled his hand from hers and stood. Nathan looked back toward the house. He had left the front door open. When he looked back at Haley he couldn't detect anything on her face.

"I'm sorry." He said. And he meant it, Nathan just wasn't sure why. "I have him…my son." He struggled to explain.

"He's with me now."

She nodded. "I understand completely."

That wasn't very reasurring. He wasn't sure what she understood. He didn't get to watch her walk away and that, Nathan admitted to himself, was a good thing. He wouldn't let himself be tempted to go after her; to try and explain. He knew the facts and still didn't understand. And to go after her would mean that he wanted more.

He couldn't have that.

Execellent timing, Nic, Nathan thought as he started down the hall toward the baby's room. He almost wished that he would be kept up all night so he didn't have to close his eyes and attempt to sleep. He would dream, Nathan knew. He would dream about her.

_Haley James._

At first, all he had was the picture. The hair, the eyes, the skin. The way her hips moved when she walked. That has been enough. Literally the stuff of fantasies. Now, he had the sound of her voice, what her laugh sounded like in his ears, not to mention what that skin felt like. That was more than enough to keep Nathan in cold showers and night sweats for months.

Regardless to what Jake said, he didn't see everywoman as his mother. He didn't. That would be stupid. He had made the decision not to get involved like that, to not get married, long before Haley James or Rachel Gattina came into the picture. He never thought that he would have kids, but here he was.

Sex for sex's sake was all that he would have, but he couldn't even have that unti he got this father thing down.

Nathan stepped into the nursery, sweat beaded on his forehead and at the back of his neck. He stopped with a start, disgust rolling over him.

He was scared.

Of a baby.

His baby.

Nicolas cries only tapered off so much when Nathan finally made his way to the crib. When he picked him up the crying stopped completely, little whimpers came every now and then. All that changed when Nathan stared going through the motions and laid the baby on the changing table. Nicolas started crying again. His little hands balled into tight little fists, his legs kicked out and his face turned red as he tried to communicate in the only what that he knew how.

Nathan took a step back, blew out a breath and attempted to calm himself. He pushed a hand through his hair and told himself that Nic was just a baby. An impatient baby. A Scott baby.

"Okay, that's enough."

He didn't shout, but the sound of his voice was enough to surprise them both. Shaking it off, Nathan walked back to the table and unconsciously began going through the motions.

"Look, I get it, okay." He told the baby. "You can't talk to tell me what you want. God knows that it would be easier, but life would just suck without the complicated." He stopped, trying to decide whether or not that would count as a curse.

He attacked the diaper. Peyton could clobber him if Nic's firs word was suck.

"Don't ever say suck in the presence of your godmother." He told the baby who had stopped crying completely. He wasn't tracking yet, but he was listening, Nathan was just too distracted to see it.

"Cut me some slack," he went on. "I'm new at this." He tossed the diaper into the trash can like a shot he'd made many times with his eyes closed.

"I'm not the blondes who can dread your mind. Those two have gotten you so spoiled. I know, they change you, bring you food, hold you, and they probably smell a whole hell…er heck of a lot better and feel a whole lot nicer. But they aren't everyday, kid. I am. I'm trying to be," he corrected. "I can promise that you will never have wet shorts or an empty stomach, just…ease up."

His eyes goggled and Nathan did a double take. He changed a diaper. He had changed a diaper like a flippin' NASCAR pit crew and the sucker wasn't even on backward.

"I'll be damned. Darned. I'll be darned. See," He asked Nic. "Now was that so bad?"

The baby started crying again.

"Right, okay," Nathan said with more confidence as he picked the baby up from the changing table. "Next stop the kitchen.

-

Later that night he couldn't sleep. Part of him was waiting for the cry he knew would come. The other part of him thought about Rachel, his mother and Haley. His head to him that because he had Nic now that he should really try and make things right with his mother, if not for him, then for his son's sake, but he couldn't do it. Inside, he was still that sixteen year old kid who had finally put the pieces of the puzzle together then walked, turning his back on the mother who was supposed to love him and that a father that who was supposed to want more than the game from him, more than triple double stats every time his feet touched the court and a state championship.

Maybe that was part of the reason why Rachel walked. He wasn't naïve enough to believe that part of her taking off wasn't about his injury. She'd been with him because of the game and when he lost it, he lost her too. She'd been pregnant and hadn't said a word. Maybe it was because she saw what he hadn't told her. He hadn't wanted that life for himself. Not even years down the line. He still didn't now, but it was what it was. He wouldn't be like his father. He wouldn't turn his back on his responsibilities. He would make sure that Nicolas wouldn't feel abandoned. He wouldn't make him feel like a commodity either.

Haley James was dangerous. There was something about that woman that made him want to open doors to her. Share things with her that he didn't, hadn't shared with Jake or Peyton. More than anything else, he considered those two to be his family. Even though the both of them had the ability to piss him off on occasion.

"They need to just get married already." Nathan muttered. He didn't know what was going on with them behind closed doors, but when he saw them together, they were a team. They took care of each other.

Then tag teamed him.

When he had gone up for that rebound and came down the way that he had on his knee, Nathan had known. Even before the sound of the injury had reached his ears, he knew that it was over. That day came for everyone; Nathan just wished that his hadn't come so soon for him. Or that it had been so final.

Even knowing it, he had refused to accept it in typical Dan fashion. He worked hard to walk without a crutch or a cane and out of that damned hospital under his own steam. He worked his ass off to only limp when he was tired, but not even that was enough. None of it had been enough to get him back on that court where he could breathe again.

Nathan felt that he could tell Haley James that. She wouldn't have to drag it out of him or guilt him into it, he would want to tell her, and that pissed him off. He didn't like that feeling. He didn't like that the fact that he would willingly let go of something so huge, one of the darkest moments for him, his weakest spot, to a woman he didn't know at all.

A woman he couldn't know period.

-

"Mail tampering is a federal offense."

Jake looked over his shoulder at the dark haired woman who looked familiar. It didn't take him long to place he as the woman from the bar the other night.

"Your friend has nothing I want."

"Get your own Victoria Secret catalog in the mail do you?" Brooke asked the man with dark eyes and curly hair.

Jake lifted a shoulder in an unconscious shrug. "Don't need it."

No, he certainly did not, she though to herself as she took in shoulders wide enough to block out the sun. She never thought of herself as a stubble kind of girl, but it was working for him. If she wasn't so hell bent on going solo after Keller, and if the man in front of her hadn't had more than an obvious thing for the bony blonde, then Brooke would have made it her mission to make this barkeep's eyes fall out of his head.

Not that she was afraid of a little competition mind you.

"What's you angle?" She asked him.

Jake was silent for a moment, debating on whether or not to tell his woman anything. Yeah he was crossing a line, but when push came to shove, those lines were blurred. Nathan needed more than a shove. He needed a kick in the ass to push him toward something that could be good for him. Something that could be real.

"Woman usually buys me a drink before she tries to get inside my mind."

"Flirting?"

"Fact."

"Oh. Well, I don't think that your blonde will like you flirting with me."

"I don't flirt. My blonde is none of your concern."

"Neither is my friend. She's my concern which is why you're going to tell me why you're resorting to mail tampering."

"Who says I am?"

Brooke looked pointedly at the mail in the big man's hands. "Let me guess, the mail man is blind and switched the mail on accident."

"Dyslexic."

"Why don't I believe you?" She said. "Why do I get the feeling that you're playing cupid with my friend and yours?"

Jake put the mail in Nathan's neighbor's mail box snapping it shut smartly. He looked the hazel eyed brunette straight in the face.

"Guys don't play matchmaker," he told her. "It's weird. But feel free to check if you think I'm lying. No skin off my nose."

"Haley deserves better to be some guy's rebound chick," Why the words came out of her mouth, Brooke didn't know. She wished that she could stuff them back in.

Jake crossed his arms over his chest. "Last I checked, your friend was over the age of 21 and you don't look like you're her mother." Mentally he smacked himself. She was looking after her friend, same as he was looking after his. He held up his hands.

"Look, I shouldn't have said that, I apologize. Whether my friend and yours go beyond being neighbors, it's none of our business." He took Nathan's mail of his mail box holding it in one hand. "But if they did, your friend wouldn't be some rebound chick."

"Right." Brooke didn't believe that. Nathan Scott had wounded by a woman stomped all over him. But something in her told her that the Brawny man wasn't lying to her. He wasn't being completely truthful either.

As soon as he was away and inside the house Brooke opened the mail box looking inside. Nathan Scott's water bill stared her in the face. She smirked debating whether she should kick the bartender's mail tampering, cupid playing, weirdo ass, or just letting things be.

She closed the mail box started toward Haley's place then stopped. She picked up Haley's mail and took it with her inside. She wanted to see if cupid's arrow worked.

-

Nathan watched as Jake held Nicolas, rocking him like his own child. He felt a cold anger inside him at the vindictive woman who had stolen from his friend. Jake would have been a good dad. Any kid of his would be lucky.

"This would be the time where I would apologize for bring this to you the way that I had seeing what you're going through. But I won't. Peyton said that it would piss you off."

Jake glanced at his friend then back down at the sleeping baby in his arms. The touched a finger to the tiny baby hand. His chest clenched almost painfully when the tiny hand gripped his finger.

"She was right." Jake managed in a rusty voice.

"She always is."

"Pain in the neck."

"Preaching to the choir, dude."

"But she's good to us."

"The best."

They were silent for long moments when Nathan spoke. "I want you to be his godfather."

Jake's head snapped up.

"Tim too, out of loyalty. But you the most." Nathan rambled on feeling like a damned idiot because guys didn't ramble to other guys.

He cleared his throat. "He needs you to be. I need you to be. You and Peyton are all I got, and I want him to have you. Should something happen to me, I want you and Peyton to be the one's to raise Nic."

Jake nodded. "I'd be honored."

"She calls him Nics."

"Who?"

"Peyton."

Jake snorted. "Naturally." He touched a finger to the boy's hair. "Well get you a new one when you grow out of this one. What about the test?" He asked.

Nathan rose from his seat and paced. "Peyton's right. I should get it for protection. And I will. Just…not yet."

"Why?"

He knew why. What Jake was wondering was whether his friend did. He saw Nathan in a new light. Before he had been a man, now he had become an adult. When you were forced to practically grow up overnight, you missed some things and you had to go back and pick them up.

Which was why Jake didn't feel bad in the least for figuratively kicking his friend in the backside. When the door bell rang, Jake rose with his godson in is arms.

"Got some things I need to take care of." He said handing the baby off to his father. "You sure you want to watch the finals this year."

"Tearing off the band-aid, Jagielski."

"Good man."

When he opened the door, Jake smiled down at the woman who lived next door. She had Nathan's water bill in her hands.

"Afternoon." He said on his way out. The friend was standing on the porch. She raised a brow at Jake. He nodded at her as he got in his car and drove away.

"Better know what you're doing barkeep." She spoke to herself.

-

She stepped inside the house just as Nathan turned with the baby in his arms.

It got her every time. When her brother-in-law held his daughters grinning like maniac it had gotten to Haley something serious.

Nathan wasn't grinning like a maniac. He looked scared. Scared and a little bit surprised. She held up the envelope. A blessing in disguise.

"Mail mix-up." Her eyes moved from his face to the sleeping baby.

"Oh."

"Oh. It's-it's your water bill. I guess you kind of need it."

_No that nervous laugh had not come from her. Drop the envelope and leave she told herself. Bail, make tracks._

"What's his name?"

_Oh you, idiot._

"Nic." He replied in that deep voice. "Nicolas."

"It's nice."

"He likes it."

_This was a bad idea,_ Nathan thought. He was going to buy the mail man glasses.

Seriously.

Standing in his living room with her was bad enough. Now he knew what she looked like inside his house. It wouldn't take much for him to think about having her on the couch. His fingertips itched. She wore her hair down today. He liked it. Nathan liked it a lot. What did you call honey blonde when it was mixed with bronze?

Yeah, he was out of it. Only a deprived man and weirdoes waxed poetic about hair.

"Nathan-"

They both stared at the sound of the man's voice. Keith stood in the door way just behind Haley. Keith took in both man and woman. He looked at his nephew. "We need to talk."

Everything inside Nathan froze and shut down. The tension that rolled off him would be picked up by the baby, and Nathan didn't want that. He could feel Nicolas begin to wake up. He was going to lose it and he couldn't deal with Keith and an upset baby at the same time.

"I'll just-"

"Could you take him?"

"What?" She held out her arms taking the baby almost unconsciously as Nathan handed him to her. "Where?"

"His room is straight to the back." She nodded and left without saying anything more.

"What do you want?" He asked after hearing the door to the back bedroom close.

"I didn't come here to fight with you, Nate."

"You shouldn't have come here at all. I meant it when I said that you weren't welcome. I'm not surprised. You don't respect much."

"Christ. I'll say what I came here to say then leave and never darken you door step again." Keith replied sarcastically.

"Why don't I believe that?"

"Believe what you want," he said to him. "I really don't care. I only came to apologize."

"You?"

"I shouldn't have said anything to Dan about you having a child."

"You shouldn't have done a lot of things, never stopped you before. Not expecting it to stop you now."

"I won't apologize for loving your mother."

"What about for what you did to your own brother? Or what about what you did to a kid for years without him knowing it. Every time she lied, she chose you. Guess I should thank you. It's because of you I found out where I really stood with my mom. Thank you, Uncle Bastard."

_"What the hell are you doing here?"_

Nathan stabbed a hand through his hair. Wasn't this just perfect? He did not want or need this right now. He hadn't even heard the car pull up. Now Dan stood behind Keith shooting looks of contempt and hatred at the other man. Nathan couldn't find it in him to feel one bit sorry for his mother's husband. They did what they did, and now they had to deal with the blowback from that.

This just added fuel to the fire. Keith and Dan's family feud, sibling rivalry, whatever you wanted to call it was epic in Tree Hill. Keith walking away with Dan's wife after sleeping with her for so many years behind his back was the ultimate spit in the face. It more than fanned the flames.

Nathan didn't want that garbage in his home.

-

Haley stepped from the room at the sound of raised voices. She closed the door quietly behind her.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I didn't come for you, Danny." The deep gravel voice that had interrupted she and Nathan earlier replied. "This is between me and Nathan."

"You don't have any business with my son. What concerns him, concerns me."

"No it doesn't." She heard Nathan speak. "You and I have said all that we need to."

"Have you taken the test?"

"Not going to repeat myself."

"God_dammit,_ Nathan." Dan growled. "What the hell are you doing? This is your future."

"You sure about that?"

Nathan's eyes flashed as he jabbed a finger at his uncle. "I don't need you or anyone else to fight my battles for me." He said.

"This is none of your business, Keith." Dan spat through gritted teeth. "You've done more than enough, you selfish son of a bitch. You busted apart his family with your lies and our actions. Neither you nor Deb gave a damn about Nathan while you were sneaking around in the shadows. You can leave."

"The both of you can go." Nathan told them. "Take it outside. I don't want this trash in my house. This battle the two of you have going on has nothing to do with me." He shook his head. "I'm not getting sucked in."

"Nate-"

"Nathan." He corrected Keith. "You've said what you came here to say. It doesn't change a thing. I don't accept your apology, and I don't have anything else to say to you. You either." He said to Dan. Keith left but his father stayed.

"Nate-"

"My future, my decision. I'm not asking you to like the decision that I've made-"

"Be a waste of your breath, kid."

"Ask me if I care? What you think and what you say do not matter. What I'm telling you is to respect me as a man. This is not going away. Nicolas is not going away. Period."

In the hallway, Haley's arms crossed over her chest as she continued to listen. This man was supposed to be Nathan's father? He didn't want Nathan to have a son? He didn't believe that the baby was Nathan? He didn't want it to be?

"You don't-"

"God-What do I have to do!" Nathan blew up making Haley jump from the force of it. "What do I have to do to make you go away and stay gone?"

"There is nothing that you can do, son. I'm your father like it or not, and I'm not going anywhere. You need me. You're taking care of a kid you don't even know is your for Christ sake. Why?"

Nathan didn't answer.

"This is a mistake, Nathan. You are making a mistake. You have no idea what your getting yourself into."

His father's words were like a kick in the chest. "What the hell does that mean?" Nathan's voice was quiet; deceptively soft. "That Lucas wasn't the only mistake you made? That you screwed up by not only knocking some other girl up, but you made the bone head choice of not walking away from me the same as you did him?"

Dan pointed a finger at him. "Don't put words in my mouth."

"Explain yourself then get the hell out. No, wait, scratch that. I don't give a damn. Get the hell out now."

"I stayed, Nate." Dan told him. "You had me."

"Really? Did I?"

"I would never steer you wrong, son."

"You aren't steering me." He said. "This is still you trying to live my dream. Well it's dead. I can' go back. This now," he said. "This is real. This is my reality. I don't want you in it. You don't accept me as a man, and you don't accept what you can't control."

"This kid-"

"Is my son in everyway that matters." Nathan finished. "I don't need some goddamn test to tell me what I see with my own eyes." It rocked Nathan to the core when he realized that he wasn't just saying the words to piss his dad off, to win a fight. He meant them.

"What matters, Nathan," Dan grabbed him by the collar when Nathan tried to turn away. "What matters is that you're putting your life on hold for nothing. You can't say this boy is yours. You won't take the damn test because you know I'm right."

"Nic is mine."

Dan shook his head letting go. "I'm done wasting my breath on this. Maybe you can talk to him."

Nathan looked over his shoulder to see Haley standing there watching him.

How long had she been there?

How much had she heard?


	9. Chapter 9

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Chapter 9

When she was younger, Haley thought that there was no better father on the Earth, no better man than her dad. She still believed that. She knew that no matter what choices she made, mistakes that she stepped into, Jimmy James would always be there. Right there in her corner. As she grew up and saw that not all men, all fathers, were like her own, she didn't understand it.

Haley still didn't understand it now.

She didn't know anything about Nathan's relationship with his father, but from what she saw it couldn't be all that great.

"How much did you hear?"

He wasn't afraid of her running to the nearest tabloid and telling anyone anything, but Nathan was worried. He just couldn't put his finger on the reason why.

"I should have gone."

That wasn't what he had asked her. Nathan banked down his irritation. He wouldn't take out his anger on an innocent person.

"This is none of my business."

"No," he agreed. "It isn't."

"You asked me to stay." She told him, her eyes flashing. "You asked me to take your son away from whatever was coming and I did."

Nathan nodded.

"I get that you're upset," Haley went on. "Sounds like you have every conceivable right to be, but don't take that out on me because you kicked the two of them out of your home. You should have kicked your size twelve foot off in both their backsides." She looked at him, the question plain in her eyes before she voiced it. "Why didn't you?"

She was amazing. Haley James went from rightfully pissed at him to somewhat in his corner.

This did not bode well for Nathan's determination and need to stay far away from this woman. She had so many faces it was hard to get any kind of hold on her. It made him want to get close to who she was all the more.

Haley knew that she had crossed a line. She would not apologize for defending herself, but asking a man that she barely knew why she didn't hem the men who had come into his home like they had right up against the nearest wall was way off base.

His father especially.

She could only guess what his relationship was with the man that wasn't his father. She had a pretty good idea what that was all about. Haley wasn't a violent person, well, for the most part, but she ached for the kid who had to go through that and wanted to deck both men who had made this man hurt in any way.

"It's complicated." Nathan finally answered.

"Is that a polite way of telling me to mind my own business?"

"You don't know," he said to her. "How badly I wish that was the way it was. It is complicated," he said to her again. "Me wanting to tell you all of it anyway just makes it that much more complex."

She swallowed hard. This was how it always happened; she could feel that ever powerful pull to take care of him. Heal him. She had to remind herself that she was out of the savior business, and this wasn't some broken heart that she was trying to cure. She could not let herself be sucked into this man, she could not.

Her breath stuttered out of her. "I should go." Words could not expressed how relieved she was that the quiver she felt all over her body didn't make itself known in her voice.

She moved around him toward the door. Her own breaths sounded in her ears. This was not good. This was very bad. She should have just put the man's mail in his mailbox. She had the door barely open when it closed softly. Her hand held on loosely to the knob.

She could feel his heat behind her, his breaths warm on the nape of her neck. He had one hand on the door, the other hung at his side. Nathan forced himself to relax. Not to touch her.

"Wait," she heard him say. "Don't go. Don't leave just yet."

He knew, _knew_ that he was playing with fire. He should let her go, get her the hell out of his house and away from him before he made good on that image of putting Haley James on that couch. And she would let him. No. No, she would give as good as she got. Nathan could feel that about her.

He was so close, Haley could fell him pull in those deep breaths. When he stepped away, taking that warmth with him, she felt cold despite the weather. Haley had to pull in a breath of her own. She turned to him, the door behind her practically holding her up.

"I'm sorry."

She looked at him then. She watched his chest rise and fall letting the words sink in.

"I'm sorry that I took my anger out on you and I'm grateful. I'm grateful to you that you took Nic away. I'm trying to keep that far away from him."

She couldn't stop herself. "What about you?"

"Both a pawn and a casualty." He admitted. "I don't want that for him. You asked me why I didn't do more."

"I was out of line."

"Maybe." He conceded.

"Don't try and butter me up." She deadpanned.

"I'm being honest." Nathan replied. "It doesn't matter what I do. My father always comes back. He pushes his way inside and I let him. It's that stupid kid inside me still hoping against hope that he'll change and be the father that I need.

"Keith," he shook his head. "He's married to my mother."

It was more than that, his father had told the tale, but Haley wasn't about to push. She barely knew him, and he knew nothing about her.

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Nathan." She said to him. "We don't know each other; we haven't decided to know each other. I'm just the woman next door."

That's all that she could be. Nathan read that very fact in her eyes. He knew that she was right. Hadn't he been saying just the same thing? Hearing her voice it cut him deeper than he could have ever imagined. More than anything, this was the reason they couldn't be. He could see himself giving too much to this woman, way too much. Haley James wasn't just that woman he could see himself waking up to every morning for the rest of his life. Haley James could take his heart and cream him with it.

-

She closed the door. Leaning back against the wood, Haley closed his eyes letting out a breath. She tired to push it out of her mind, but she couldn't, it was impossible. It was like he was imprinted on her everywhere. It had to be her stubborn mind messing with her or her body's refusal to get with the program, but Haley could still feel him as if he was still standing behind her.

"Hales?"

"Shut up." She kept her eyes closed. The breathing wasn't helping. Dammit, this was not good at all.

"You okay?"

Haley's eyes opened. "No. No I'm not."

"What happened?"

"That man is dangerous." She told her friend. Unconsciously, she pressed a hand to her rapidly beating heart. Never had anyone made her feel like this…this crazy. She was burning up from the inside out and it scared her. Maybe Nathan Scott wasn't a man on the rebound. No, she knew that he wasn't a man on the rebound, that was a plus, but after today, she wasn't going anywhere near him.

Brooke took in her frazzled friend and immediately thought back to what Mr. Mail Tampering had said.

"_Your friend wouldn't be a rebound chick."_

She'd only met the man one time and while he had that wounded look about him, but something told Brooke that he didn't need Haley James to "fix" him or "rebuild" him. That's what scared her. That was why she was freaking out, hyperventilating. Brooke loved her friend, but Haley's tastes, whether she could see it or if it was some unconscious thing, took to guys who needed her to put a band-aid on whatever it was has bleeding and broken. She was the one taking care of them, giving, while they took, took, took.

She wasn't going to push her very best friend toward the man until she knew for sure, but Brooke knew that Nathan would be the kind of guy to give. Even though he didn't want to. The man was a fighter. He may not get in the ring and trade blows for a living, but that didn't change his stripes.

Brooke tired not to smirk. This was going to be good.

Becasue Ms. Haley James was a fighter, too.

She could feel Brooke's eyes so intent on her, but before she could do anything about it, she had to sit down before her knees gave out on her and she crumpled into a puddle of female mess on her floor.

"Are you going to tell me or not?"

"Not." She caught her friend's look. "I can't, Brooke. Not without getting into something that isn't your business or mine. Just know that I won't be seeing Nathan Scott again."

That's what she thought. "Can you tell me why?"

"I told you already."

Brooke sighed impatiently, rolling her eyes. "Dangerous how?" She wanted to know. "I'm pretty sure he's not some ax wielding maniac."

"Despite your rain woman tendencies, not even you know that much about the man. Unless you have some crystal ball or some magic eight ball on you that I don't know about.

"Haley-"

"Leave it, Brooke." Haley sighed. "Please."

The other woman nodded. She would leave it. For now.

-

Nathan sat in the dark. He pulled the heavy blinds, blocking out the sun and turned off the air conditioner. At the moment, he would rather sweat then have to listen to the noise. No matter how quiet.

"_This is a mistake, Nathan. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."_

"_Don't go."_

"_Me wanting to tell you makes it that much more complex."_

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying, but failing to relieve the tension that sat there.

She was absolutely right. They were just neighbors, but they had decided. They had decided not to know each other. It was the right thing for the both of them. He had too much coming at him and it didn't look like it would be stopping soon.

But there wasn't a woman he wanted more.

Being near her like that had been a monumental mistake because he wanted more. He wanted to be closer. Strawberries. That's what her hair had smelled like. Strawberries and flowers. He liked that combination.

Nathan shook his head in a bad attempt to jerk himself back to reality. He leaned his head back in the chair that he sat in. He told himself that this was the right thing. The responsible, unselfish thing. It wasn't just him putting on the breaks when he would love nothing more than to rev his engine.

They didn't even know each other.

A soft knock at the door jolted him. He stayed where he was, not moving until it sounded again.

"It's not her," Nathan told himself. He scowled at the acute disappointment that filled him when he saw that it really wasn't.

"I've only come to check on you, Nathan."

"You shouldn't have, Mom." He told her. "I'm fine."

"Can I come in?"

Nathan knew that he stood blocking the door and his stance was defensive as ever, but no one could blame him. He didn't want to get into it with his mother. He was drained. He knew that letting her in would start something that wasn't up for. He told his mother as much, but the woman would not be deterred.

"This can't wait, Nathan. We've put it off for long enough."

He sighed, backing away from the door and moving deeper into the house. Deb followed her son inside watching as he fell into a chair.

The place was stuffy as hell. It was bordering on 100 degrees outside and he didn't even have the air conditioner on. She glanced down the hall toward the baby's bedroom. The door was closed. Deb left her son in the living room while she went to check, to make sure that Nathan hadn't had her grandson sweltering. He was fine. And Nathan hadn't moved.

"Keith came by today?" She began.

"I'm sure he told you all about it. I didn't accept his apology."

The woman sighed. "Nathan-"

"Don't." He warned her. "Don't even. I don't wan anything from that man. Not even his apology. Those are just words."

"They're more than that, and you know it. Is this how things are going to be? Are you going to hate him forever? Are you going to hate me?"

When he didn't deny the way that he felt, Deb felt dizzy. Her son hated her? "Nathan, I-"

"You're what? Sorry? It's too late for that."

"I don't know what else to say."

"How about you were selfish?" He suggested. "How about you were wrong? How about you were a coward? How about you weren't a mother to your son when you should have been?"

"You left me."

"I would have gone anywhere with you, Mom." His voice came mouth came out hoarse. "You knew how dad was. He was suffocating me. He took something that use to be fun, something that I was good at just because and made it into my the only way that I could get away from him. You were supposed to protect me!"

The woman's chest hitched on shuddered breath. Her eyes burned, but she couldn't open her mouth to say one word in her defense.

"You didn't." Nathan went on. "You didn't protect me, mom. You didn't choose me. You chose him. You chose your lover. You could have divorced dad. You could have left and I would have gone with you. You didn't protect me from him, so I protected myself from the both of you."

"I…"

"Save it." He shook his head. "Why did you come?"

She shook her head as if she didn't understand. "Why did you come to me?" She asked her son. "The night you found out that you had a child, you didn't go to you father, you didn't go to Jake or to Peyton, you came to me. Why Nathan? If you hate me, why did you come?"

Nathan pulled in a deep breath, his jaw clenching. "It would be so easy," he told his mother. "It would be so easy to hate you. It would be so easy to hate dad, and it's harder than ever to hate Keith, but I do. I hate that man. I can't even look at him without wanting to rip his head off. In the end, you're my mother and Dan's my father. It shouldn't mean a damn thing to me on either end, but it does. That's my curse."

Inside Deb felt like she was coming a part. Everything inside her burned like she was dying.

"I never meant for any of this to happen." She got out. "I never meant…" she cried.

He wouldn't let himself look at her. His own eyes burned, but he would not, Nathan would not let that kid inside him go to her. He felt the lowest of the low. His mother was crying, but could not stop feeling the way that he felt. He could not. And he refused to be guilty. He didn't blow their relationship to hell. She did.

"I won't keep you away from him." Nathan spoke. You're Nic's grandmother. I won't let this thing with us get in the way of what you already have with him. You accept him. You and Jake and Peyton."

"Keith accepts him."

"I don't give a damn what Keith accepts."

"How long are you going to hold on to this, Nate?"

"When it stops, Mom." He told her. "When I can stop thinking about it. When I stop being pissed. When it stops hurting. I'll get over him going to Dan, because to me that just shows what an asshole the man you married is. But this other thing," Nathan shook his head. "I'm not making any promises to either one of you, I can't, because the day it all stops may never come. When I think about it, Mom, the only thing that shouts in me head is that I would have gone with you. I would have chosen you."

Nicolas soft cries sounded on the monitor. Nathan nodded his head in the direction of the baby's room. "Go ahead," he told his mother. 'I meant it when I say that I wouldn't keep you away from him."

He stayed where he was until he heard his mom speaking to Nic in that voice that made him nauseous. He walked through the kitchen and out the backdoor. The concrete of the patio burned the bottoms of his feet. They were quickly cooled when he stepped into the grass. He went to the fence between the houses, resting his arms across the top of the wood. Hanging his head, Nathan closed his eyes, wishing that he was anywhere at that very moment than where he was standing.

Haley watched him from her kitchen window.

-

When he hauled himself back inside, the house was quiet. He thought that his mother had gone. When he heard the bedroom door open he learned that he was wrong.

Nathan stood in the living room waiting when his mother saw him, she stopped. While she had been seeing to her grandson, Deb thought about her little boy with the bright blue eyes and the mischievous smile that matched their sparkle.

Nathan had been right. She hadn't protected him. Instead she had stood back and let Dan take the reigns. She let her son feel the brunt of what his father was because she just couldn't do it anymore. She let Dan take something that was so much apart of Nathan and turn it into something unbearable, something that her son had learned to depend on because he couldn't depend on her. She sat back and watched while her son floundered trying to find his own means of escape. She hadn't been there for him, she hadn't helped him. Deb had found her escape and used it frequently, her child be damned.

"_I would have chosen you."_

She should have chosen him. The sad truth was that when it came down to it, Deb didn't believe. She didn't believe that Nathan would have chosen her. Not against Dan, because even though he was who he was, Dan had been there. He chose Nathan. She thought that the man's hooks were in too deep. She had been so wrong, so very wrong, and she had no idea how to make things right with her son. If they could be made right at all.

But she wanted her son back.

"Nathan, I want to fix this." She told him. "Tell me what needs to be done and I'll do it."

The earnestness in her eyes, her need…Nathan had to fight not to let it sap him.

"If you had asked me this years ago, I would have told you to leave Keith and never see him again. He botched our family. But what we had wasn't really all that much to begin with." He admitted. "I won't ask you to do that now. I can see how you feel about that man, and I'm not a child anymore."

"Thank you."

He laughed humorlessly. "Don't do that," he told her. "Don't thank me because despite what I just said, I do blame him. I blame him for taking my mother away from me when I needed her. I blame you, but I blame him too for blowing up our relationship like a damn cannon. I wasn't enough-"

"No, Nathan-"

"Just stop." His anger rose again. "_Stop_. I don't want to know how it was or what it was. It's done. You asked me what needed to be done to fix this, and I don't know. I don't know, Mom."

"I want my son back."

"I want my game back. People in hell want ice water, Mom. All the want in the world doesn't change anything because at the end, we don't know. We don't know how to fix this."

"Do you want to?"

-

"You did what?"

"The guy was being a mule-headed jackass, Peyton. I did what any guy would do for his friend. I committed a felony to make my best friend stop avoiding, stop being a chickenshit, to go after what could be a good thing."

"You don't know a damn thing about this woman, Cupid." What the hell had gotten into Jagielski?

"Stop looking at me like that? What if this blows up in your face? Nathan finds out and he'll be jumping on your head."

"I'm not going to open my trap. You?"

"No, but that doesn't mean that the bony big mouth won't."

"She's not going to say anything."

"Give you her 'guarantee' did she?"

Jake lifted a brow. "Jealous?"

"Please."

"Uh-huh." He liked this side of Ms. Sawyer. Her gold-green eyes blazed at the thought of another woman giving him…guarantees. He had to laugh at her description of the other woman. He was pretty sure that she thought of Peyton the same way.

"Look, I just don't want the guy to miss out on something great because he's a moron. Maybe something will come of it."

Maybe Nathan Scott will stop hiding.

"And if this attempt didn't work?"

"Then it didn't work."

"And you'll leave it?" She asked him. "Jake?"

"If he gives me a reason. She, this woman, could be good for him, Peyton."

"Okay, who are you doing chick flicks with, and what's the bitch's name?"

"There's no chick and no flick."

"I don't believe you. You're either watching the damn movies with someone else or watching daytime TV. One of the two. Which is it?"

"Look woman, next time she come into the bar and he's here, watch it. You'll see."

"And if I don't?"

"You will." He promised. Jake backed her up into the bar. Peyton's eyes grew wide and he loved it. "And, FYI, the only person I'm watching chick flicks with is you."


	10. Chapter 10

**I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for the longest update drought. School and life have been taking precedent, not to mention this story is writing the way that I want it to and I hate to force it. I will try harder in the future not to let a month go by before I post again.**

**So sorry for the serious lateness.**

**Alex.**

* * *

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Chapter 10

_With a deep groan, he pulled the pillow over his head. Who the hell kept leaving that damned window open? And it was way too damned early for those big mouthed birds to be singing._

_It wouldn't stop. They wouldn't stop and sleep would not come. Nathan rolled to his back, throwing the pillow he'd had over his head as far as he could. There was the soft smack of it hitting the wall and the almost soundless thud of it touching the floor. He glared at the ceiling, refusing to look at the clock._

_Nathan rolled to sitting, his legs over the side of the bed. He washed his hands over his face, pulled them through his hair. When he stood, he pulled his sweats up with him then fell to the bedroom floor in the first of his morning pushups. His chest had touched the floor for only the third time before he noticed it._

_The ring on his finger._

_He froze, unable to take his eye of the gleaming metal that stared back at him. He pushed to his feet staring at his hand like he didn't know where the limb came from. His eyes felt like they were about to fall out of his head, he stared at the ring incredulously until his eyes grew unfocused. He blinked and his gaze caught on the framed photo at his bedside. _

_Moving slowly, Nathan picked up the frame._

_It was of him. _

_He was holding a baby. It wasn't Nic. It couldn't have been because Nathan hadn't been there. He hadn't known that his child had existed until the last minute. And this shot…this picture was taken in a hospital._

_What the hell?_

_He set the picture down only to pick up the one next to it. It was of him and a little boy no more than four. He recognized the clothes that the boy wore. He'd worn them himself once upon a time._

_T-Ball._

"_Hey!"_

_At the sound of the raised voice, Nathan's heart jumped into his throat. He started for the door just as it flew open and a pint sized bundle of boy threw himself at him. Dropping the picture Nathan caught the boy instinctively. He held the boy away from him just staring. He wore pajamas with trains on them, his breath smelled like little kid toothpaste, his hair was as dark as night and all over the place, and his eyes, Nathan's eyes, stared back at him._

"_Mom says it's time to get up."_

_He stared at the boy unable to speak._

"_Mom says…" He tired to speak but his words trailed away._

_The boy frowned up at him. "Are you still going to take me and Jake to the big park with the pool fountain? Mom said to ask."_

"_Yeah, mom said to ask."_

_Nathan looked past the boy in him arms to a younger version of him with his arms out in front of him like he was flying, like he was Superman. He was being held in the air by an arm wrapped around his stomach, his feet stuck out behind him. He had Nathan's eyes and mischievous smile. His hair was just as black, but it was curly. _

_His gaze shot to the pregnant stomach next to the boy's head then up to the amber eyes of the woman who carried him._

_He swallowed._

_Haley frowned at him in confusion._

"_What's wrong?"_

Nathan's eyes shot open. He jackknifed up in bed. Breathing hard, his body was covered in sweat, shivering with cold. His heart was beating so hard in his chest, he could feel it in his throat, hear it beating in his ears. He swung his gaze to his bedside. There was no picture, only the clock. He held his hands out in front of him.

No ring.

He blew out a hard breath. He'd been thinking about her a lot lately so it really didn't surprise Nathan that he dreamed about her. What kicked him in the stomach was the ring, the wife, the extra kid, and the obvious bump in Haley's stomach that he knew he was responsible for. A part of Nathan was scared to death at the dream, but there was a bigger part of him that wasn't. It was just a dream. He knew that.

But still.

Nathan pushed the dream and Haley, as far as he could, out of his mind. He was halfway into his morning routine, his chest touching the floor for the umpteenth time during his morning pushups when he caught himself looking at his hand and the ring that wasn't there.

How long he stared at his bare finger was anyone's guess. Hearing the familiar cries from down the hall, Nathan pushed out twenty rapid pushups then went to see about the baby.

-

Not wanting to be faced with his mother for any period of time, Nathan took Nic with him to the bar. It sounded bad, but it wasn't like they were actually open for business during breakfast. Nic seemed right at home being held in the arms of his godfather while Jake showed him around the place.

It's hadn't been a great morning.

Nic was inconsolable. He had to be held. He threw up all over himself and Nathan. He had to bathe the boy twice because the first time he threw up in his bathwater. He hadn't settled down until they had gotten in the car and started moving.

Peyton had her nose buried in paperwork when Nathan pulled up a seat next to her at the bar. He made note of the way the woman watched their business partner out of the corner of her eye. Nathan shook his head laughing softly.

"It's really sad that that man has been denied his right to be a father to his daughter." She spoke. "Doesn't make any sense that a man who's so good shouldn't be able to have the one thing he really wants in this world."

"Bad things happen to good people everyday, Peyton."

"And the worst of the worst get to go on like nothing they do every effects anyone."

"Preaching to the choir."

"Bringing a baby to a bar? I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere?"

"Figured he should see that place. And we can't exactly go home."

"Why?"

"I can only take so much of the smell of baby puke."

Peyton laughed. "Forget how to open a window."

"The morning sucked. Nic likes riding in the car. Besides," he pulled in a breath. "Cabin Fever is a bitch."

"Whatever the reason. It's nice to see you out of the house, Nate." She looked up at him. "The neighbor?"

"Still the neighbor."

"Riiight."

"What did that daytime TV, chick flick watching, cackling hen tell you?"

"Just that you have a thing for the bony brunette's friend. Jake said when he left your place last the neighbor was on your door step. Do tell."

Nathan looked down at his chest, just to make sure.

"I don't have boobs."

"In the hell are you talking stupid about?" Peyton asked going back to the task at hand. "I can see that you are missing that attribute."

"I don't girl talk. Last I checked, guys didn't 'dish'."

"This isn't girl talk," Peyton told him. "And just what do you call all that locker room talk? It's just girl talk with man parts. Guys so girl talk."

"Not this guy."

Peyton lifted a brow. "Uh-huh. I'm not asking because I'm a gossip. I'm asking because I care. What's going on, Nate?"

He gave his friend a long look before his mouth beat his brain. "We had all of 30 seconds before Keith and Dan showed."

"I'm sorry, Nate."

"They probably did me a favor. Haley heard the whole story of the Scott brother feud. She learned how Dan felt about Nic. After I kicked the both of them out…"

"What?"

He wasn't going to tell even Peyton 'what'.

"Then mom showed…I don't even know how she can look at me and not try to see what she sees." He all but blurted.

"I don't understand."

"After hearing all that, whatever Haley thought about me before has changed."

Nathan was looking straight ahead at nothing, while Peyton watched him. "No doubt." She finally replied.

"I don't want her pity."

"How do you know that's what it is?"

He said nothing and Peyton wanted to slap him.

"That why she's still the neighbor?"

"Part of it."

"What's the other part?"

Now this was girl talk.

Peyton sighed.

"Feel free to scratch and rearrange if it'll make you feel more manly. Jeeze, Nate, you're acting like I asked you about your monthly or your lack of boobage."

"Guys don't-Shut up." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Look, things are just…just."

She brushed her hand over the top of his head as she stood moving past him.

"So what? That's it?"

"It's what we decided."

"Now that's happiness about it."

"It's not like anything could happen anyway."

"Why not?"

Nathan didn't answer right away. He watched as Jake handed Nic to Peyton. They looked like a family. He knew that he had made the right choice in the two of them. He knew that Nic would be taken care of if anything were to happen to him. When they spoke to each other, it was in low murmurs. They could be talking about what be needed to be done for the bar for all he knew. He didn't know. He couldn't make out the words. It jus seemed so intimate. Nathan almost felt like a voyeur.

"Nate?"

He blinked then frowned. "What?"

"Why not?"

Why not?

"Because home and hearth is tattooed on that woman somewhere and I don't do family."

"Just what do you think that Jake and I are? What about your son?"

"Totally different, Sawyer and you know it. I'm not married to you. Jake isn't the brother I hate with a passion and Nic…"

"Nic?"

"Nic will never be me." Nathan told her. "He won't ever feel the way that I felt. There's enough of Dan inside me that I have to fight it everyday. It's not just for myself anymore. It's for him too. I don't want to do that to anyone I love."

"So you're just going to deny yourself and you child?"

"Haley…"

"What?"

"Nothing." Nathan shook his head. "Forget it."

Peyton sighed. "Nate."

"It wouldn't be fair, Peyton." He told her. "Not to her, not to me, and not to him."

"Some battles you can't fight alone, Nate." She told him. "This is one of them. Dan, he's not an issue. You aren't a kid anymore. You already beat him. You slayed that dragon. Not by going all the way with basketball, but by being your own man and living your life your way. So don't give me that weak assed excuse. 'Cuse me, baby." She patted Nic's back. "You're scared." Peyton said to the baby's father.

"I'm not scared of anything."

She snorted. "You're scared that you aren't strong enough, or you don't deserve to be happy because you have some whacked out notion and you'll wreck it. Not doing such a bang up job now, but you couldn't be more wrong, Nathan Scott. You can have it. Take it."

"We decided-"

"Seriously, Nate? Seriously?" He wanted her to slap him. That's what was wrong with him.

"What?"

"Don't hide behind that lame assed excuse either."

"Nice talk."

"I'm sorry, baby."

"I forgive you."

"I wasn't taking to you, clown."

"Figured." Nathan barely hid grin.

"Undecide." She told him. "I can't believe you've got me up here going all after school special. I should push your sorry butt off that barstool, you blockhead."

"I love you, too, Sawyer."

"I just want you happy, Nate."

"Does happiness really exist?"

"Yeah," Unconsciously, Peyton's eyes moved to Jake. The man smiled as he talked to the delivery man. "It really does."

-

"You two are going to be gorgeous." Haley grinned as she helped her sister bring her baby nieces inside. She had them dressed in matching dresses with bonnets and booties, looking so sweet it made Haley's teeth hurt. They had fine red hairs on top of their bald little heads.

"It'll come back ladies," she murmured to them, remembering when the girls had been born they'd had head full of red hair.

"How goes it, Mama?" Even exhausted Haley's sister looked great. She still had that glow about her.

"What are you thinking about over there, Haley James?" Her sister asked.

"How much you look like mom." She replied. "Serene. It's permanent. Mom had eight kids and she still has the glow."

"If eight kids is what it takes to keep it, she can have it."

Haley laughed. "You know you want more."

Her sister laughed too. "I do." When she got that look. That "Mom" look. Haley nearly squirmed in her seat. It had to be a power that you came into, she thought. Her middle sister had always been the maternal one, now that she had babies whatever gifts she'd been given at birth were multiplied by a billion.

"What's his name?"

"How do you know it's a guy?"

"Last I checked, you weren't into women."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"You said that you're not going to have babies, which I don't believe for a second." Her sister went on. Haley rolled her eyes.

"You need a guy for that as you well know." Haley gave a pointed look.

"Now you know that there are many ways to be a mother. Adoption, foster parenting, artificial-"

"Stop." She held up a hand. "Me auntie. You mommy."

"Talked to Brooke."

Closing her eyes, Haley groaned. That big mouthed spoon user. When she got a hold of that girl she was going to superglue her lips over her head to the back of her neck.

"Whatever your envisioning over there is anatomically impossible."

Haley glared. Her sister laughed harder.

"You are our mother's daughter. Proof that you weren't left on our porch by hillbilly aliens like Brian said."

"Brian can kiss-"

"Language. Virgin ears."

Long story short, Brian hadn't been Haley's favorite sibling coming up and he wasn't now.

"Hales."

"It's complicated, Jess."

"The guy or the situation?"

"Both."

"Oh."

"What do you mean 'oh'?" Haley demanded. "You say that like it's a trait of the sexiest men on the planet."

"So he's hot?"

"Didn't say that."

"And I quote, 'sexiest man on the planet'."

"You know what I meant."

"Yep." Jess tucked her strawberry blonde hair behind her ears, her brown eyes gleaming. "Not only is the man not bad to look at, there's that something about him that makes your stomach melt like butter."

Dark hair, killer eyes. Wounded, broody and sexy. And he loved his son, even if he hadn't said the words yet.

Haley shook her head hard. "Hot and sexy are not the same thing. Stop smirking at me."

"I know it. But they're components for sexiest men on the planet. I should know. I married one."

"Only you would think that bookworms are sexy."

"This coming from a fellow bookworm?" Jess raised a brow. "It's the glasses. And he can play the piano. And…he washes dishes."

"Jackpot."

"I'm sayin'." They laughed. "Look, are you going to tell me about him or am I going to have to ask Brooke?"

"Big mouth cow. I'm gonna tie her tongue in a knot."

"She loves you, Hales. She doesn't want you to waste your time on another rebound guy. Is he?" She knew that he wasn't. Whoever this guy was, he had her baby sister tied in knots. In that good, scary way. She just wanted to hear Haley-Never Going to Happen to Me- James, say it.

Haley sighed. "No." She raised a brow. "What exactly did Brooke tell you?"

"Aside from the fact that he's your neighbor, not bad looking, and on the comfortable side when it comes to money, not much."

"You always were a terrible liar, Jessie."

"This is me opening up the door for you to talk."

She did. She told her sister about Nathan, sweet little boy, his bastard father and idiot uncle. All Haley knew, she told.

"You're scared."

"He may not be a rebound guy, but I find myself wanting to save him. I have a bad habit of saving people. I'm tired of saving people. I want to just be."

"Doesn't sound like this guy needs saving. He's not a rebound guy. He's completely whole. Beat up maybe, scratched and dented, but whole. Uncharted territory. And he burns you up from the inside out, doesn't he?"

"You're stepping in it."

"I'm shocked, and a little disappointed, Hales. You aren't one to back down from anything or anyone."

"This is different."

"This could be real."

Haley was saved from answering when the girls let it be known that it was lunch time.

-

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"I wanna see it."

He couldn't resist. It was wide open and the smart ass in him had to go for it. Jake leaned against the bar crossing his arms over his chest. "It?" He asked. "Why whatever do you mean?" He had the pleasure of seeing those eyes go wide, heat, then droop.

_Oh man._

When Peyton shook it off, Jake grinned.

"Gonna have to be more specific about what you…want."

Peyton pulled in a breath. "I want to see this…whatever it is between Nathan and the neighbor."

"Haley."

"Haley." She replied. "Nathan's being a bonehead jackass and I would rather go covert ops than kick his ass. I would hate for Nic to have to grow up with the embarassement of his father being stomped by a girl."

"You're no girl," he muttered.

"What?"

"That's my girl."

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for something." He was behind the bar. Pulling out the small garbage can he upended it on the polished wood of the bar. Napkins, notes, labels and dead pen fell from the plastic can. Jake pawed through it until he found what he was looking for. The coaster with Haley's friend's name and number on it.

She looked like a Brooke.

Peyton picked up the coaster before he could. Jake tried to snatch it away, but she moved before he could.

"Kind of need that."

"Why?"

God he loved it when she got territorial. Even more so because he knew never in a million years would Peyton Sawyer admit it.

"You didn't tell me that the bony brunette tried to pick you up."

She hadn't. She had tired to pick up a man that she hadn't known was married. Innocent mistake seeing as the asshole had "lost" his wedding ring. Jake didn't like the dick, so he had taken the coaster and told the sorry sac that he would ring is damned neck if he heard about the business man stepping out on Bevin.

Not that he was going to let Peyton in on that just yet. Jake was just ass enough to let her think that something was going on with he and Brooke. He knew how he felt about Peyton, he didn't know how she felt about him. The woman was just so damn complicated. When she finally told him how she felt, she was going to mean it and she wasn't going to be able to go back on it.

Time to give Skills the heads up, he thought. How the other man would love to swoop in and take Bevin home with him. Back where she belonged.

Peyton handed the number over. Jake hid a smile as he dialed.

Brooke Davis. If that wasn't prom queen, Peyton thought, she didn't know what was.

"_Brooke Davis."_

"Brooke Davis? Jake Jagielski, bartender at Jeyton."

"Ah, the weirdo-mail tampering-cupid."

"I notice that you didn't try to fix matters, accomplice."

"What can I do for you, felon?

"You let one thing pass. Had to be for a reason." He said. "I'm thinking that you believe me." The woman was silent the other end. Jake smiled and Peyton quietly seethed.

"How would you feel about going all in?" Jake looked over his shoulder grinning at Peyton's back as she slammed glasses in a basin sink to be washed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey All. Yes, this is the real deal. Those of you who read Because He loved her know that I'm trying to get back into my writing no matter how awful the show is at the moment. I refuse to watch. School and life have been kciking my ass as the moment and I need some zen. SO I'm back. My goal is to finish both Because He loved Her and Daddy Overnight. I hope you all come back.**

**~Alex. **

* * *

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Chapter 11

"Look, Nate, you don't have to speak to her, but we really need the help tonight. Don't let your anger at your mom keep her for being there for Nicolas…or for you."

"I told her that I wouldn't keep her away from Nic, and I meant that. What's going on at the bar?"

Jake let it go that Nathan totally ignored his comment on him letting his mother be there for him too. He wasn't about to push his luck. Not tonight.

"Been swamped for the last few nights. Tonight is the deciding game for the playoffs, as you well know, and the place is going to be packed. Paperwork is threatening to drown me. I would ignore it, but I've put if off as long as I could. I don't get it done and we'll be short necessities. If you and Peyton could man the bar while I do my thing?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

When the doorbell rang, Nathan stood staring while Jake watched him. He snapped out of it walking toward the kitchen. "Get that would you."

In the kitchen Nathan grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge that he did not want, didn't even open. He stared out the window over the sink into Haley's backyard. He felt cold standing in the kitchen looking into the dark. Remembering Haley riding a cherry red riding mower, belting out a song like she originated it, warmed him up considerably.

That all vanished when he felt his mother standing behind him. He didn't turn. He kept looking out the window. Nic started to cry and Nathan still didn't move. The sound got to him, but Nathan stood where he was. He breathed an inward sigh when he heard Jake moving down the hallway telling Nics that he was on his way.

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"No you're not."

"I will be."

"Nathan,"

"Don't mom…just don't."

"I'm not giving up on this."

"Surprise, surprise" was right on the tip of his tongue but somehow Nathan kept the words from jumping out to slap his mother in the face. It said something about the situation considering the way he felt about his mother.

"$20 says that Nic is starving. He passed out after his last meal. He hasn't had a bath. That No Tears junk is in the tub."

Deb's eyes burned. "You're better at this than your father was with you." She managed.

"Yeah, well I'm not Dan. And I never will be."

"I know."

"Now."

"Now." She agreed nodding. "I don't how many times I can say that I'm sorry for that, Nathan. How many is it going to take for you to believe me?"

"I don't know, Mom. You should know that it may never be enough." He stared out of the kitchen. Deb opened her mouth to speak, but Nathan beat her to it.

"He likes to sleep in his yellow pajamas. Peyton bought them for him. They're in the laundry."

-

"What are you up to, woman?"

"Woman? Did you just call me woman?"

"Nothing wrong with your hearing."

"Look," Brooke lied as they went outside. "I met the really nice guy the last time we went to that bar and he finally called me back. If it bombs, I want you there with me. Besides, the way you look, you're bound to get more than a few numbers thrown your way tonight. Maybe your luck will change and you'll snag a hottie who isn't covered heat to toe in issues."

Yeah, that would be just her luck.

"By the way, do not dish with my sister."

"I love your sister."

"Yeah, telling her about Nathan so she could get all Big Sister on me was a low blow, Davis, and there will be repercussions."

"She told me you threatened to superglue my lips to the back of my neck. Vicious."

"Necessary."

"Whatever. You'll forgive me, because tonight you're going to have some fun, on me."

Haley walked ahead of her, shaking her head, muttering under her breath about looking for places to hide Brooke's body. Brooke rolled her eyes to the sky and prayed to God. She was only doing this because Haley needed a decent man who was not a boy playing dress up. She wasn't sure that Nathan Scott, basketball God or not, was that someone, but he was a hell of a lot better than all the others.

"Please, God, don't let her find out."

"What?"

"Get in the car."

She caught the eye of the bartender as soon as they arrived. He spoke into the skinny blonde's ear, while all the while the woman watched her.

What the hell?

"What did you do, Brooke?"

Oh shit…"What?"

"The blonde behind the bar looks like she wasn't to smash your face in. What. Did. You. Do?"

"I'm insulted."

"Uh-huh." Haley shook her head. They moved deeper into the bar and she froze. The smile that had been on her face slowly died away when Nathan came from the back of the bar. The conversation around them was too loud for her to hear what he was saying, but there was a smile on his face but it didn't reach his eyes.

When he saw her, Nathan watched her. Brooke didn't even attempt to hide her smirk. Haley would boil her alive once she found out, but this was going to be so choice to watch.

"You want to get the table or the drinks?"

"Table."

Thought so. "You know, James…if I flapped my arms like wings and clucked I would be you."

"Fall down the stairs."

Brooke laughed as she made her way to the bar. Nathan glanced at her then started her way. Shaking her head, she waved him off and pointed at Jake.

He didn't know how he felt about that. It wasn't like Jake and Peyton were a couple, but still, they might as well have been for the way they acted around each other.

No. Nope. This was not his business, and playing cupid or matchmaker was weird.

It was chick move.

He tapped Jake on the shoulder and pointed to the woman at the end of the bar who could recite basketball stats backwards, forward, up and down and from side to side, and left him to it.

"Alright, I got her here, what's the plan?"

"I figure we'll lock the two of them some place together and they'll have no choice but to speak."

"Okay," Brooke nodded. "Where?"

"Bathroom."

"Now that's romantic."

"You got a better idea? I'm all ears. We can't exactly lock them in the back office. How would we explain that? Besides, the door to the men's room sticks."

"The men's room????" Brooke's eyes goggled. "How in the hell am I supposed to get her in there?"

"The ladies room is out of order. Think of something."

Brooke thought of something the whole way back to the table. Her Will in Testament for example. Ratting out the burly bartender and his blonde accomplish, testifying against them for a lesser sentence.

"Come." Brooke held out a hand.

Haley shook her head. "I move and we lose this spot."

"So we find another. I want to touch up my face before my date shows."

"What happened to the drinks?"

Lord the woman was all about the questions tonight. "Have you looked at the bar? Of course not. It's been completely taken over. Besides, I want to see if the date orders for me or asks what I want."

"Ever the calculating diva."

"What's not to love?"

"Beats the hell out of me."

They headed down the long hallway to the rest room. Brooke chattered away about something that Haley tried to be interested in but couldn't make herself care.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Brooke rolled her eyes. "I know you can read. The ladies room is out of order. Pretty irresponsible for a place this packed. Let's complain to management later." Oh, the mail tamperer would love that.

"What the hell are you doing?" Haley's eyes grew wide as Brooke headed toward the men's room.

"Broken record much? Look, the other ladies room is all the way on the other side of the bar and this place is mobbed. It'll only be two minutes."

"What if someone's…in there?"

Grinning, Brooke poked her head in to the "land of the forbidden."

"Brooke!"

She ignored her. "Zip 'em up and move 'em out of if you've got them gentlemen. We've got an emergency." No one replied. The place was unoccupied.

"Luck."

"Or a psycho waiting in the shadows for a couple of morons, such as you and I, to fall into their trap. What men's room in a crowded bar do you know to be empty?"

"Hales, the coast is clear. Watch the door if you're so afraid."

"I'm not afraid."

"If it flaps like a chicken and clucks like a chicken."

Haley shoved the other woman inside, sticking a garbage can in the door so that she could watch their back at the same time.

"Prude."

"Shove it. What did you do?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Because you haven't answered me. The blonde at the bar wants to pull a strip off you hide. What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Uh-huh."

"Swear." Brooked raised a brow. "I can't help it if my vision is perfect."

"The burly one."

"So hot." She lifted a bare shoulder. "If he's hers, then fine. But I can still look."

"And get your eyes pulled out of your head.

She rolled those eyes just to be a smart ass. Haley took up the sink furthest from the door. Compromising her position couldn't be helped. She needed to get her own self under control before she went back out there.

Leaving the house so wasn't a good idea.

"I don't poach." Brooke told her.

"That should every woman's motto."

"It being ours isn't enough?"

"Have you seen COPS?"

Brooke laughed. "Good point."

Haley twisted the knob to turn on the sink and the two women screeched when the two sinks next to them shot water straight to the ceiling.

"What the hell!"

"Nice," Brooke murmured to herself smirking. The bartender didn't mess around. "What are you doing, Haley?"

"Trying to stop it." She was pulling paper towels from dispensers and throwing them to the ground in vain attempt to sop of the water that was creating an ocean on the floor.

That's really going to help.

"I'll get someone!" Brooke called over the sound of the water.

"Well yeah!"

-

Brooke left the bathroom making her way to the bar. The blonde saw her first. She nodded and got a nod in return. Brooke saddled up to the bar getting Nathan's attention.

"Hey! The sinks in your men's room just blew all to hell."

"What?"

"I said-"

Nathan shook his head. "I heard what you said;" he just didn't believe it."What were you doing in the men's room?"

"Your ladies room his shut down," she told him. "And I wasn't about to go on a fantastic voyage just to stand in a line longer than my arm just to fix my makeup."

He looked to Peyton. She looked back, a smirk starting on her face.

"I'm not going in there." She told him.

She really wanted to feel bad because she would be pissed if someone set her up, and she hated to do it, but Jake was right.

He shook his head, dragging the toolbox from under the bar. Not worried about Peyton being behind the bar alone, Nathan headed toward the men's room unaware of the look shared between the two women.

-

Nathan was actually happy about the mess that waited for him. He did not want to be here tonight. He wanted the quiet of his house. He didn't feel like being around people, and he intended to make fixing a few sinks the longest busy work possible.

He would make damn sure of it. If he could swing it, Peyton and Jake wouldn't' see him for the rest of the night. Jake would be taking that paperwork home with him.

Nathan swung the door open wide, kicking the trash can out of the way, the toolbox leading the way inside. The first thing he saw were two sinks shooting like geysers. They only shot straight up in the air like fountains in the movies. The sinks in front of him still shot to the roof, but they sputtered water out every which way else.

The woman trying to stop the water wasn't doing anything but wasting paper towels trying to mop up the water making a bigger mess for him to clean up later. Nathan made a note to thank her.

The tool box chose that moment to act its age. The handle snapped, and dropped the box's considerable weight on Nathan's foot.

The sound of imaginative cursing sounded through the water shooting up from the sink, catching Haley's attention. Nathan swore a blue streak. She could have laughed if she hadn't been taking him in like a woman starved.

His dark hair had fallen over his forehead, and he needed a shave. The dark blue long sleeved shirt he wore was rolled up to his elbows, the black jeans he wore looked supremely good on him and the boots he wore obviously didn't protect his foot from the tool box that had just slammed into it.

He kicked the box, making her smile. Nathan took a few breaths but when he looked up, he did a double take.

The smile slowly fell away as his eyes grew wide. Nathan whirled around just as the door behind him slid shut, the soft click louder than the water rushing around them. He ran a hand over the top of his head. Trying the knob would piss him off. Somehow he just knew. He tried it anyway. He closed his eyes gritting his teeth. When he got out of here, he was going to kick Jake's ass up around his shoulders.

They were locked in.

Slowly he turned around to look at her. Nathan pulled in a breath so deep, his chest filled with the scent of her.

_Shit._

-

Jake chuckled as he moved the "out of order" sign from the ladies room to the men's room.

Nathan was going to kill him, and he was pretty sure that he was going to hell, but he didn't care. His friend needed this. If this thing blew up in all their face, Jake could gladly take a punch in the face for it. But he was confident that it wouldn't. Nathan being Nathan would screw it up, but he would also make it right.

There was something to Haley James. He knew what Nathan saw. He saw it himself, a blind person could see it, but for so many reasons Nathan was hell bent on ignoring them. Jake chuckled again as he glanced back at the door. His friend had no choice but to take it head on and do something about it now.

He pictured the looks on their faces and laughed his ass off. Peyton caught his eye when he stepped back into view. He winked at her, his eye filled with mirth. Her eyes fell to half-mast, more green than god. She winked back, and then smiled.

Oh man…

All that was left were the fireworks.


	12. Chapter 12

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Chapter 12

She wore her hair down.

Those burnt blonde curls were dotted with water making her dark eyes that much more beautiful. The sleeveless back shirt and the dark blue jeans she wore were just as sexy as the get up she'd been wearing when she rode that lawn mower.

"What are you doing here?"

On that was smart. Real smart. He owned the place and had obviously come to fix the busted sinks, hence the tool box that had fallen apart on him.

He kept looking at her; staring like a man starving. It both thrilled and scared the hell out of her. He picked up the biggest tool in the box and started toward her. Haley's eyes widened, her skin tingled where their hands touched as Nathan moved her away from the mess.

He still didn't speak and she was finding it harder and harder not to take offense. Yeah, they had decided not to know each other; they, not just she. She didn't appreciate his rudeness.

Crouched, Nathan hooked the wrench to the valve to shut off the water. It wouldn't budge. Jake was good about making sure that things didn't rust, so that wasn't the problem. The problem was the superhuman strength he used to tighten things. The man made it nearly impossible for anyone t come behind him and fix anything.

Fed up after the third time trying, Nathan threw the wrench against the wall next to him. He didn't see Haley jump behind him.

Couldn't' anything be simple in all this complicated mess around him? Just one thing?

His clothes were slowly becoming soaked; the damn valve wouldn't shut off the stupid water. He had a baby at home that needed him to survive. He may be indifferent to his own mother for the rest of her life and his. He hated his son of a bitch uncle. The little boy inside him still wanted his dad, and the woman he wanted most but couldn't have was standing right behind him.

Why couldn't the damn stupid valve just shut off the water?!

"Fuck it."

Nathan wasn't giving the stupid thing a choice. He snatched up the wrench hooking it back to the valve then kicked the handle. He kept kicking the handle until the sucker moved. He kicked and kicked cursing Jake, Dan, his mom, his bum knee and the punk ass valve Jake had tightened with the powers he'd gotten from Crypton. When it was finally loose he shut off the water.

The only sound was his heavy breathing. He was completely soaked to the bone now. Water fell into his eyes. He wouldn't let himself look at Haley. He could feel her eyes on him.

"You okay?"

He didn't answer. Instead Nathan sloshed through water and paper towel to the door. He knew that damn thing was stuck. No way would it open. That would be going against the grain.

Nathan jerked uselessly at the knob anyway, and then slammed his fist into it when it wouldn't budge.

"Nathan-"

"What are you doing in the men's room, Hales?" He said to her. "It's dangerous."

She could only blink at him. She'd heard the nickname all her life. Just never by him. Nathan had never called her Hales before and she should feel weird that a man that she barely knew was using it.

But she didn't.

She liked it.

She liked the way her name sounded on his lips.

-

"Haley."

"The ladies room-" She cleared her throat. "The ladies room is out of order."

"We have two." He replied slamming tools into the busted old box.

"It's on the other side of the bar." She told him. "I wasn't alone. Brooke-"

"Men who want to take advantage would see you alone in here as easy access; a gift in a pretty package."

"I wasn't alone."

"Yeah, your friend came to the bar. You should have come with her. Crime isn't huge here, but we aren't Mayberry. Don't ever take a chance like that again."

Haley's anger finally peaked. To hell with this, she thought. "Number one, I can take care of myself. And number two, just who in the hell do you think you are telling me what to do?"

Nathan just watched her. He heard the words shooting out of her mouth; he saw the anger and irritation, at him, in those dark brown eyes. He was still pissed off; livid. Haley had taken a huge chance with her safety and Nathan wanted to shake her. But none of that mattered at the moment. All that mattered was right now.

"You are not my father." Haley went on. "And last I checked, you weren't my man, and even if you were you wouldn't get away with trying to tell me anything. I don't know what the hell your problem is Nathan Scott but-"

He was too close. She could smell him that musky scent of man mixed in with the citrus scent of his aftershave. She couldn't look at him. Her eyes were glued to the wet shirt that clung to the hard planes of his chest.

A breath shuddered of her. She pulled in another breath. When she took a step back, he followed. It was a mistake. It would only make things more complicated.

No, Nathan told himself, it wouldn't. They had already chosen not to know each other. This was just…just…this was completely removed from that.

Maybe.

Probably.

Not likely.

He didn't care. Even if he could stop himself, he wouldn't. He didn't want to.

He brushed his fingertips down the side of her face, over her check, watching as Haley's eyes fluttered closed.

"Don't." she breathed the word. One hand gripped his wrist, but she didn't push him away. Instead she leaned into him resting her forehead against his chin, her other hand rose to his chest. She could feel his heart beat under her fingertips strong and steady.

He couldn't…he couldn't touch her like this, have her holding him like this and not…

He cupped her cheeks in his palms tilting her face to his, making her look at him. Haley's eyes came open searching for something, anything, but Nathan's gray gaze gave away nothing. She knew that he was going to kiss her, that she should stop him. It was the smart thing to do.

They'd decided.

But she didn't.

-

When his lips finally touched hers Nathan realized that it wasn't going to be so easy to walk away from this one, keeping away from this woman, from Haley. Not just because he wanted her in every way humanly possible. It would be the quickest way to burn her out of his system.

If that was what he wanted.

What did he want?

At the moment, he wanted this. He wanted this woman in this bathroom with the rest of the world trapped outside a stuck door.

A sound vibrated in her throat and Haley took over. She fisted her hand in the wet fabric of his shirt, pulling Nathan as close as he could get. Her other hand speared through the soaked wet of his hair.

They'd decided, she reminded herself. But she was taking this, she was having this.

"_Get it, girl."_ Her inner Brooke cheered.

The kiss slowed from hot to sweet. Nathan's hands moved from Haley's face to her waist. Her hands moved to the evening stubble on his cheeks, the roughness of it chafed the sensitive skin of her palms.

She moved away from him. He stood their dazed for a minute intending wholeheartedly to finish what they'd started, but he stopped himself, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans thankful that she had the common sense to do what he could not.

"That better not have been to shut me up."

A smile curled his lips.

"Was it?"

She was still talking…maybe I should try that again. The words were right on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say them. "I would have kissed you a long time ago if all I wanted was for you to close your mouth."

"Oh."

Oh? _Oh?_ Was that the best that she could come up with? Seriously? Great, she was one of those women. One kiss from a man and her mind went to mush.

Well…in her defense…if they were kissed they way that she was then…

"What's going on with you, Nate?"

He liked that. He liked that her calling him Nate. He knew that he shouldn't, that he shouldn't get attached, but he couldn't help it.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

He looked at her. Haley had her arms crossed over her chest. She was searching him again, but getting nothing. He was his own counsel. Those walls shot straight up.

"We decided. Remember?"

_Undecide,_ Peyton's words came back to him.

She nodded. They'd decided. He was exactly right. But that still didn't stop the hurt. It was unreasonable, she knew, but it was still there. She wanted to undecide. It was stupid, the man had complicated, hurt, defiant and all those other sexy words that attracted her written all over him plain as day. And she still wanted to undecide.

No.

Just like they had decided, she was deciding to get the hell out of his bathroom before she did something stupid like kiss him again…or punch him in the throat, whichever came first.

-

Nathan watched as she charged past him intend on getting the hell away from him. He could relate. He needed away from her in a bad way. He needed fresh air because he didn't how long he could keep himself from doing what he said that he wouldn't if he kept breathing in the scent of her.

It was driving him crazy.

"What the hell is wrong with this door?!" Haley kicked at the cursed door with her foot.

"It sticks. Jake was supposed to have gotten it fixed."

"Jake should be fired."

"I'll tell him you said so."

Taking out her cell phone from her purse, Haley dialed Brooke. There was no answer. She hated leaving messages, but this was an emergency. "Davis, I'm locked in the bathroom, thanks for coming back by the way, spoon user. Get someone and bust he me out ASAP."

"You never answered my question."

Haley snapped her phone closed. "You never answered mine either."

They stared at each other not speaking for long moments. Haley blew out a breath.

"I'm one of eight children and my dad is the best man I've ever met. I'm confident he's the reason I haven't married because no man has ever measured up. With my dad being who he is…it's just hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of all father's not being like him. I mean, I know that they are out there, I'm not naïve…but still."

She knew that she was going out on a limb, and it was stupid, but she did it anyway. "So we decided not to know each other…romantically. That doesn't mean that we can't be friends."

A ghost of a smile hitched his lips. "I don't kiss friends like that. Jake will back me on that one."

She smiled too. "I never kissed Brooke like that either."

"Pity."

"God," she rolled her eyes. "You're one of those guys."

"Every man has a dream. Mine just happens to be that."

"You and every guy with boobs on the brain."

"Do you know every guy with boobs on the brain?"

"Your smile doesn't reach your eyes, Nathan."

"You're one of those women. Leave it alone."

"Can't."

"It wasn't a request."

"It's not good to hold it all in. It gets twisted and angry, then is spreads making things a whole hell of a lot harder to deal with."

"What does your father do?"

She didn't try to read him. It was no use, but she was still caught off guard by the question anyway.

"Um..He worked for the power company ever since he graduated high school. He retired last year."

"My father was the best ball player to come out of Tree Hill." Nathan told her. "Until he blew out his knee in college, or led others to believe that he blew out his knee. He quit. Tried to go back but it was too late. He couldn't cut it anymore. So every dream he had for himself, he pushed on to me, relived through me.

"He said that he wanted me to be the best. In Dan speak that meant he wanted me to be the best but not better than him. He's never admitted it, and I don't expect him to. Ever. It's always been there between us and I expect it always will be. When I beat him it was like both the best thing and the worst thing happened to me at the same time." He said the last more to himself than to her.

"What about your mother," he asked trying to move away from Dan in his mind. "What does she do."

"She's a housewife; was a housewife." Haley replied with a smile. Nathan was caught on that smile. He heard the words coming out of her mouth, but her smile caught him and kept him there.

"She had to be for the first little bit. She had eight kids. Five daughters and three sons."

"Where do you rank?"

"Bottom feeder. Youngest daughter, youngest child."

"I'm…sorry?"

She laughed again and his chest hitched. Nathan cleared his throat.

"What about your mom?"

_I would have gone anywhere with you. I would have chosen you._

"Mom is a fundraiser."

It was like a dark passed over him when he talked about her. Haley didn't press. Nathan had given her so much already and she was thankful.

"How's Nic?"

Nathan smiled a little. "He's great. He smiles now." The smile slowly fell away when he realize that he hadn't wanted to leave his son tonight. That feeling that he'd had not weeks earlier, like he was suffocating was completely gone. When had that happened? He was shocked that didn't want to be here, that instead he wanted to be at home with his boy right now.

His boy.

"My sister just had twin daughters."

Nathan could only shake his head in amazement.

"I'm sorry." He said. "I'm sorry I came down on you."

"Don't do it again."

He chuckled softly. "I'll make sure of it."

She grinned. "See that you do."

He couldn't stop thinking about the dream. He knew that Peyton was right. He was denying himself because he was scared to death. Jake was right too, but no way was he going to tell that fathead that.

Nathan knew that he wasn't a sure bet and that was what Haley deserved. But he couldn't go on not seeing her. Even if they were just friends.

It sounded like an excuse "just friends," but it was all that he could hope for.

At least until he got his head on straight.

-

He was staring again.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Something."

"I was just thinking about what you said earlier. About you and I being friends." Nathan told her.

"And?"

"And…honestly…I don't believe that it can be done. There's something between you and me Haley and-"

"You're scared."

"Terrified."

"What if I told you that I was terrified too?"

"It wouldn't be a shock. I was in the living room, remember?"

Haley remembered. She remembered the living room episode clearly. Vividly. She also remembered talking to her sister.

_This could be real._

Jess was never wrong. This could be real. Nathan Scott didn't need anyone to save him. What did he need? She didn't know, but she wanted to find out. She wanted to be there with him and his little boy for however long it lasted.

"Why don't we decide something new?"

Nathan's heart thumped harder in his chest at her whispered words. He swallowed hard, his throat working. His gazed never wavered from those amber pools that gave away such a serious eagerness.

"You're going to have to be more specific." He said to her.

"Why don't we decide, you and I, to be friends and go from there?"

"What if you and I decide later on that-"

"Nathan-"

"I'm not a sure bet, Haley." He told her. "I don't want you to become invested in me, in this, in us, then come to find out that I can't give you what you need. I don't want to get invested in this then learn that I'm not what you want."

"It's just friendship, Nathan."

"No it's not, Haley." He spoke earnestly. "We can try and make it seem that way, work at it, but it's more than friendship…and you know it."

She knew it, but she wanted it anyway. "What are you saying."

"That I don't want to regret not trying."

"What was her name?"

"Rachel."

"Nic's mother?"

He nodded.

"Did you…did you love her?"

"No," he shook his head. "She never gave me the chance. "And even if she had, I wouldn't have taken it. I didn't love her. What we had was physical. We both proved as much when I washed out of the league and she walked without telling me that she was pregnant with my baby. She bent my trust." He said. "She bent it a whole hell of a lot because love or not, she should have told me."

He almost laughed at himself. "I should feel like a real for telling you all this, but I don't. Why is that?"

Why did he want to tell her everything?

Her smile was soft. "We're friends right?"

After a moment, he nodded. "Friends."

Right.

Shit.


	13. Chapter 13

Daddy Overnight

An OTH Fan Fic

By AlexB

Chapter 13

She shook her head and couldn't help but smile.

"You are such a woman."

"Did you see the way he looked at her when she left?" Jake almost crowed he was so high on himself. "Didn't I tell you, Sawyer?"

"You told me."

She'd seen it. She'd seen the way that Haley had looked at Nathan, too.

It was a real as it got. He would try, he would fall, he would make things right, then he would fail, because there was no way that Nathan could ran away from what was between him and Haley.

After Haley had left a rather threatening voice mail on Jake's cell, he had let them out of the bathroom.

_"Look, I'm cold, I'm starving, and I don't have the equipment to stand up and piss. Get me out of here or I'm kicking this door down and making one of these wrenches a permanent fixture on your body."_

Peyton had laughed at Jake's mock shudder.

"We did a good thing, Peyton." He spoke quietly. "Those two have something there that shouldn't be ignored because they're trying to be noble or are scared to death."

"I agree." She watched him closely. "Are you sticking around, Jagielski?"

He frowned. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're still camped out in a hotel, Jake."

"You worried about me, Sawyer?"

"Maybe I am."

She watched as he hefted a keg from its place.

"You don't have to, you know. I'm fine.

Peyton shook her head. "No you're not."

Jake let out a breath. "When it comes to my daughter, I may never be." He told her. "I haven't given up hope, I never will, but the reality is that I may never get to be a part of my daughter's life. I've stopped torturing myself with the impossible. The reality is more than enough."

"Nothing is impossible, Jake."

"Nikki is not doing to change her mind, Peyton. I know this. Who knows what Jenny has been told about me."

He moved from behind the bar and started to stack chairs on tables. Peyton could only watch him, her heart breaking. She wished that she had never opened her mouth.

"I don't expect a call from my little girl anytime soon, and that…that pisses me off." He went on. "She probably doesn't know who I am, and that hurts. That hurts like hell."

Jake couldn't count the number of times he'd lain awake thinking about the fact that his little girl could walk past him tomorrow and he wouldn't recognize her anymore than she would him.

He wanted to punch his fist into something but settled for throwing a chair instead.

What if his daughter didn't know who was?

What if she never knew?

What if she never wanted to?

"I'm sorry." He felt Peyton's arms wrap around him from behind. "I'm sorry." She pressed her cheek to his back.

"I'm never going to be okay." He said. "I don't have a choice. It's almost like she'd dead, but she's not and that makes it so much worse." He moved his hands to cover hers. "Thank you for caring about me, Peyton. Thank you for taking care of me."

"Somebody has to."

He nodded. "Maybe. But I'm glad it's you."

-

Friends?

Could they really do it?

Nathan felt the whole world spinning around him. He barely knew this woman.

Haley.

He was dealing with his father, finally dealing with his mother, the situation, all that anger, and all he wanted to do was tell Haley.

This woman he barely knew.

He didn't know why.

He didn't love her. He couldn't. Nathan didn't believe in love at first sight. Lust, hell yeah, but love…no.

But he wanted to tell her everything. He pretty much did and she didn't run screaming when Jake had finally come to release them.

She wanted to be friends.

He wanted that too.

He wanted a whole hell of a lot more.

So did she.

It would be a mistake. Haley James was not a woman you just took to bed and forgot about. She was the kind of woman who would get under your skin.

She was the kind of woman that made a man want to put a ring on her finger.

That would never happen. They would just be friends and he would be taking cold showers for the rest of his life, or until he got over her, whichever came first.

He sat on the porch. His mother was inside. She was waiting for him, he knew. She could wait as long as she wanted to, because a few days didn't change facts. He still didn't have any answers to her questions. He didn't know how to fix what was broken. He didn't know if things could be fixed. He didn't know if he wanted to fix them.

He didn't hate his mom. He hated what she'd done. But he hated her husband. Nathan hated Keith and he would probably hate that man for the rest of his life. He didn't hate his father even though for him it would be a hell of a lot easier if he did. He hated who the man was.

He didn't want to be like him.

He wouldn't be. Not just for his son.

Nathan didn't move at the sound of the door opening. Instead he sipped his beer, letting his eyes slide closed.

"We're you even going to tell me that you were out here?"

"No." He answered honestly. He'd needed more than a minute to pull things together as best he could in his own mind. It hadn't worked. He sighed opening his eyes. "I don't hate you, mom."

Deb's voice hitched as hope bloomed and fresh tears welled in her eyes. "Nathan-"

"That doesn't mean that I forgive you, or that I will ever be able to, or even that I want to." He shook his head. "I can't understand,"

"You would if you talked to me."

"What would that solve?"

"I could make you see-"

He shook his head. "No, you couldn't." He told her. "I'm betting that Dan wasn't the ideal husband, the facts speak for themselves. I can't comment on your marriage because I was too young to care. I had to deal with Dan as a father. You knew what he was like, and you should have protected me. You didn't. You should have protected me, but you were too worried about yourself and you threw me to the wolves."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I know." Nathan replied. "But that doesn't change anything."

He didn't move from where he sat until his mother had driven away. He never felt heavier as he went inside. Moving through the house, he shut off the lights. Standing in the kitchen, he looked through the window over the sink to Haley's, hoping to catch a glimpse of t he woman who had an insane hold on him, but the windows stayed dark and her car wasn't in the drive.

Nathan was weary enough he could fallen in to bed and been asleep on impact, but he bypassed his room completely. He found himself in Nic's room watching him sleep.

There was every possibility that was borrowing trouble, but Nathan didn't care. He lifted the baby from the bed and sat in the rocking chair that Jake had brought. He didn't care for the color, but it worked. Nic stayed asleep.

"I'm sorry." He told the sleeping baby. "I'm sorry."

-

There was a package on Haley's front porch when she returned the next morning. She had crashed at Brooke's place, unable to stay at her own the night before. Not after spending time in the men's room with Nathan.

Nathan.

They had decided to be friends.

He'd kissed her.

They'd decided to be friends.

Decision or not, the man had kissed her, but good, and she hadn't trusted herself to stay in her own place with him just across the fence.

No flippin' way.

As it was, being at Brooke's place was a bust. It only aided in her not making a complete fool out of herself in front of Nathan…by going to his house, saying damn the friendship, and that she wanted more kisses preferably without his shirt on.

That's all it did.

It hadn't stopped the dreams, thank you very much.

_"You can always tell when someone has had the best sex ever. Even if it was only a dream."_ Brooke had grinned cheekily over the rabbit food she dared to call breakfast.

Haley stomach growled now, but she ignored it, promising it something later that would be so not healthy it would damn near be fast food. The package on her porch was addressed to Nathan from and Anna Delgado.

Both curiosity and resignation filled Haley. Curiosity because this was the second time something of Nathan's mail had made its way to her porch, and even though it was none of her business, she wanted to know who this Anna Delgado was. The resignation came because she knew that she couldn't just leave the package on Nathan's porch for him to find. She would put the damn thing in his hands because she was her mother's daughter and the envelope looked important, and….she wanted to see him.

"Friends don't drool over the neighbor boy…er man."

No boy had ever kissed her like Nathan had. Otherwise she would have been married in the first grade.

Haley made it across the lawn, and between the fences without falling on her face. Pulling in a stead breath, she knocked on the door.

It was a wimpy knock, she knew that. A part of her didn't want him to hear, a bigger part of her hoped that the man wasn't home.

She knocked harder again the second time. When there was no answer, she cursed herself for not taking the out that had been staring her in the face.

"What the hell is wrong with you woman?" She spoke incredulously to herself. She raised her hand to knock again, stopping, she frowned.

Was that door open?

Her eyes grew wide.

It was.

What if he was hurt?

What if the baby was hurt?

What if Nathan was hurt and Nic needed him?

Haley listened hard. She didn't hear Nic crying but she couldn't leave until she knew for sure that the both of them were okay.

The house was stuffy. Even for so early, it was already hot out. They lived in the south. She thought about calling out but decided against it. If there was a homicidal maniac in the house she wasn't about to give away her location.

"Sure, now you think about homicidal maniacs." She muttered.

There was no one in the living room or the kitchen. The shared bath was empty. She poked her head in what was Nathan's bedroom. The bed hadn't even been slept in. She didn't stay in there long. His bed in her dreams had been quite enough, thank you very much.

The door to the nursery was wide open. This was the last place in the house unless they were hiding out in the garage. Haley didn't like garages. She didn't even like her own garage. She let her truck get rained on. If they weren't in the nursery, she was calling the cops.

She pulled out her cell phone, stepped into the room and stopped.

Her heart melted.

Nathan slept in a rocking chair bristly dark cheek rested against the head of the growing boy that slept on his chest.

The both of them, man and boy, made identical snuffling sounds in their sleep. It was cute. It brought a sentimental smile to Haley's face.

She was such a girl.

They were fine. She should leave the package on the porch for Nathan to trip over and fall down the steps. He'd scared her to death; it would serve his ass right. What she needed to do was put the package down and get the hell out of dodge before the man woke up and wanted to know just what the hell she was doing in his house uninvited.

She didn't move. She couldn't. It was like her feet were cemented to the floor beneath her and the only thing she could think was that she wanted this. She wanted the family, the husband to wake up to, or to find the nursery with their child asleep on his chest.

She wasn't denying herself. She just hadn't found that right man yet. She would. Later rather than sooner, but that guy would come along.

Haley came out of her revere to find Nathan awake. He hadn't made a sound. He just watched her; his dark blue eyes both sleepy, but alert even though they were unreadable.

She opened her mouth to speak, to explain, because there really was a simple explanation.

The mail person was dyslexic and she had brought over his mail…again. It looked important so she couldn't just leave the package on the porch. She had knocked, he didn't answer. She was going to take the package home but his door was unlocked so she let herself in just to make sure that he and his son had not been victims of foul play by some homicidal maniac in a hockey mask.

None of that came out.

"Hi."

His only response was a quick twitch of a killer dark brow.

"Your door," she swallowed hugely. "Your door was open."

Why didn't he say something? She had spoken now it was his turn to speak. He just kept looking at her when the least he could have done was assure her that he wasn't about to call the cops.

He just kept looking at her, and all those fires she had failed to douse on the way from Brooke's, the fires that had made themselves scarce when she had been sure that Nathan and his child had been visited by Michael Myers' cousin, came back hot enough, strong enough to burn her up whole right where she stood.

-

When he closed his eyes last night, Nathan had been sure that he had been in his own bed. He should have known that his subconscious and his libido were in cahoots and laughing their asses off at him when he had supposedly come out of his bathroom to find thewoman standing in front of him dressed in a bed sheet instead of the jeans and shirt she wore now.

Or was he still dreaming?

He couldn't help but take her in.

They had decided to be friends.

He had kissed those lips the night before.

They had decided to be friends.

She'd kissed him back.

They had decided to be friends.

He wanted to kiss her again.

_Stop looking at her mouth,_ Nathan thought to himself. His gaze moved from her face to every other place that would get him embarrassed. They stopped on the package in her hands.

"The mailman," she started. The laugh she gave was nervous. Good nervous. He had it about himself to keep the smirk of his face.

Nathan stared to move but grimaced, then growled as an uncomfortable pain shot through him.

He had a crick in his neck the size of a fat linebacker.

Great.

Nic chose that moment to wake up and protest the fact that his shorts were wet.

"Alright, buddy." Nathan's sleep roughed voice attempted to soiled and starving child.

He groaned as he stood still holding the baby.

"Can I-" What? "Do you need something?"

Nathan eyed her for long seconds.

"Could you change his sorts?" He asked. "Fresh ones are under that table. If you could do that while I fix his grub and clean up…"

Haley nodded mutely as she took the now pissed baby from the bed he'd made at his father's chest and laying him on the changing table.

"Goodness you're an impatient little boy." She couldn't help but smile.

He found himself watching her, not because he wanted to make sure that his son was being taken care of, he knew that Nic was in good hands, but because the scene looked so right.

It shouldn't have.

He barely knew her.

_"We decided…"_

_"Undecide…"_

Just friends.

Just friends. Bullshit, Nathan thought. He and Peyton were just friends. Tim and Jake were his friends, but Nathan had no desire to keep either one of them in bed for hours on end.

-

Haley got the baby changed. Nic was happy enough, but she could see in those blue eyes, his father's eyes, that he was about to start up again.

"Food's coming."

He took exception to that and Haley couldn't help but chuckle at the impatient wail sent up as he punched his tiny fists into the air for good measure.

Nathan had left his "grub" on the kitchen counter. Just seeing the bottle had quieted Nic down considerably. The baby took to the bottle like it was going to be his last meal.

Haley unconsciously rocked the Nic while she fed him. She barely registered the sound of the shower running in the background. She was fascinated by the tiny being in her arms that looked up at her with every intention of figuring out just who the hell she was and the situation at hand.

"You could probably explain it better than I could." She murmured to the infant.

The phone rang but she ignored it. It kept ringing. The answering machine clicked on as she walked NIc around the kitchen, singing him silly, stupid songs that made his tiny mouth smile around his breakfast now, but would probably make him roll his eyes later.

"This is Nate…" the machine's recorded greeting played. "Voicemail is the product of Satan. Get to it."

_Beep._

"Nathan," a man's voice barked. "Nathan, pick up the damn phone! Now."

Just then the door to Nathan's room flew open. He stood in just jeans. His feet and chest were bare and shower water still dotted his shoulders. His head was shower damn and his eyes were dark as midnight.

She knew that look, seen it before. Nathan was pissed.

He charged to the phone snatching it from its receiver.

"I told you to lose this number."


End file.
